Only 16 counties have qualified accountants while the rest have quacks managing their funds, an ICPAK survey found.
The Auditor-General has blamed hiring of unqualified accountants for financial management woes in the counties.
He also revealed that quacks were making it harder for auditors to do their job.
Most County governments are grappling with financial management challenges since they do not have qualified accountants.
This is according to Auditor-General Edward Ouko, who revealed that some of the county officials managing public funds have no basic knowledge of accounting.
He blamed lack of capacity in financial management as among the challenges causing abuse of taxpayer cash in most of the devolved units.
“How do you expect a county official who does not have basic knowledge of accounting to manage billions of shillings of public funds?” Mr Ouko wondered.
“As a result of lack of financial management skills, most of the counties are facing problems on management of public resources,” he added.
The Auditor-General made the remarks in Mombasa Wednesday when he officially opened the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Kenya's (ICPAK) public finance management conference.
To correct the issue, he called on the county chiefs to employ trained personnel, revealing that quacks were making it harder for auditors to do their job.
“It is better for county governments to spend money in hiring qualified accountants rather than employ staff who are not knowledgeable on financial management...when the counties have the right financial managers, it would be easy for auditors to get the information they want for them to do a better job,” he said.
Watchdog role
Mr Ouko also impressed upon ICPAK and civil society to keep checks and balances on spending of public funds at both the the national and county level.
“Parliament alone cannot play the role of monitoring usage of public funds. There is need therefore for ICPAK and civil societies to scrutinise the financial reports and ensure funds are spent on the intended purposes,” he said.
ICPAK chairman Fernandes Barasa conceded that most counties governments are facing financial management problems due to a gap in professionalism, but noted that some like Kakamega, Kisumu, Garissa and Mandera counties had hired qualified accountants.
An ICPAK survey had revealed that only 16 county governments have qualified book keepers while the rest had employed unqualified staff.
“ICPAK had a series of meetings with some of the governors on the need for them to employ qualified accountants but there was no political good will,” he said, while calling on governors to employ accountants who are members of ICPAK.
“Our association has 20,000 members who are qualified accountants. Therefore, the counties should employ some of our members to address the rot in financial management,” he said.
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