Use budget report to punish errant officials

• The budget controller has questioned payments worth more than Sh50 billion that the Treasury is currently paying, or has already paid under dubious circumstances in the past 12 months alone.
• The report notes that while a total of Sh24.4 billion was spent on payment of pensions and gratuities, only Sh24.1 billion had been released to the beneficiaries through Exchequer issues at the end of the financial year.
• With regard to the government ministries’ overdrafts with the Central Bank, the report says no information is available as to which ministry borrowed, how much they borrowed and the purpose for which the debt that has since accumulated to Sh36.9 billion.
• The now regular and timely Controller of Budget reports show that to a big extent the new Constitution is helping to shed light on previously opaque government records.

The Office of Controller of Budget has released yet another damning report on the spending of public funds, which raises questions on payments by the Exchequer worth billions of shillings.

The budget controller has questioned payments worth more than Sh50 billion that the Treasury is currently paying, or has already paid under dubious circumstances in the past 12 months alone.

This latest report includes payments for old projects that the Auditor-General has questioned in the past, such as the multi-billion-shilling Kenren Fertiliser Factory loan, and new ones such as a Sh36.9 billion overdraft at the Central Bank of Kenya by government ministries.

What is evident from the report is that imprudent public debt accumulation is rooted in weak monitoring and evaluation structures in most state organs.

The problem is made worse by a lack of effective oversight by Parliament, which has the mandate to check excesses and impose sanctions on officials who are found to be corrupt or acted in abuse of their offices.

Another particularly troubling aspect of the report is the re-emergence of irreconcilable accounts in the government records, coming just a few months after the Public Accounts Committee raised the red flag over a similar discrepancy in the Kenya Revenue Authority and Treasury’s records.

The report notes that while a total of Sh24.4 billion was spent on payment of pensions and gratuities, only Sh24.1 billion had been released to the beneficiaries through Exchequer issues at the end of the financial year.

This raises the possibility that a whopping Sh300 million could have been released to non-existent pension claimants in just one year.

With regard to the government ministries’ overdrafts with the Central Bank, the report says no information is available as to which ministry borrowed, how much they borrowed and the purpose for which the debt that has since accumulated to Sh36.9 billion.

The now regular and timely Controller of Budget reports show that to a big extent the new Constitution is helping to shed light on previously opaque government records.

The reports, however, will be of little help if they are not used to punish errant public officials and improve on accountability.