Ms Gathungu, currently the Director of Quality Assurance at the Auditor-General’s office, will serve for eight years.
She is taking over from Edward Ouko, who was appointed in 2011.
Her approval will now hand the budget oversight role to women given that Margaret Nyakango replaced Agnes Odhiambo as Controller of Budget last December.
Incoming Auditor-General Nancy Janet Kabui Gathungu faces a backlog of audit reports aimed at unearthing high-level corruption across all levels of government if she’s cleared by Parliament to occupy the office that has been vacant for nearly 10 months.
The office is supposed to present audited reports on spending by State offices and firms within six months after the end of every financial year in June, but the delay in recruitment has led to a backlog.
Ms Gathungu, currently the Director of Quality Assurance at the Auditor-General’s office, will serve for eight years. She is taking over from Edward Ouko, who was appointed in 2011.
Her approval will now hand the budget oversight role to women given that Margaret Nyakango replaced Agnes Odhiambo as Controller of Budget last December.
Kenya has been without a substantive Auditor-General after Mr Ouko, the first person to occupy the office under the 2010 Constitution, retired in August last year on completion of his eight-year non-renewable term.
Audited reports for the 2018/2019 financial year were due by December last year but the exit of Mr Ouko in August meant that he could not conclude the work. The reports are not only crucial for assessing whether taxpayers got value for their money, but also form the basis for county allocations.
The Treasury bases allocations to counties on the last audited revenue accounts approved by Parliament.
When he joined the office he found a backlog of about four years that took him nearly his entire term to come closer to start reporting within the six-month deadline required by law. “The office was to report by December 31 but because there is no Auditor-General, a lot of work is in abeyance,” said Mr Ouko.
Lack of an Auditor-General has also delayed the review and release of financial statements of State agencies such as Central Bank of Kenya, Capital Markets Authority, Ethics and anti-Corruption Commission, KenGen #ticker:KEGN and Kenya Power #ticker:KPLC.
The companies must secure approval for reporting their corporate results from the government’s new auditor-general, delaying payment of dividends.
In Ms Gathungu in-tray will be overhauling the State procurement and payments system that is easily tampered with and is central to halting the looting. She will have to push Parliament to tackle the enabler of the theft; a faulty procurement and payments systems as well as named officials and companies involved in dubious contracts
The process to find a new auditor-general began last September but the Sammy Onyango-led panel opted to re-advertise the position, saying none of the 17 candidates shortlisted after the first interviews met the criteria for the job.
The decision was challenged in court by activist Okiya Omtatah, who said that some of the considerations imposed by the panel were outside the eligibility threshold set in law.
Later, President Kenyatta then appointed a new team headed by Mutua Kilaka to identify new candidates. The team selected three finalists. The process was concluded last Friday with the nomination of Ms Gathungu, who had been rejected by the earlier panel.
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