Auditor General Points Out Governmental Financial Misuse

In order to reduce misuse, Auditor General Nancy Gathungu has advised the National Treasury to close tax gaps in government ministries.

According to Gathungu, some departments receive funding in July after the fiscal year has ended, which leaves room for waste.

She claimed that this causes money to be wasted, reallocated, and misallocated in addition to being illegal and irregular.

“The constitution speaks to twelve months in a year, which is a financial year. But your excellency, we have created a thirteenth month and in that thirteenth month there is a lot of wastage of resources as your accounting officers whom you have appointed struggle to absorb funds in May, June and unfortunately in July funds that they should not be receiving in July and that creates the loopholes your excellency for wastage, reallocation, misallocation, illegality, and irregularities,” Gathungu spoke at State House.

She did, however, assert that the issue might be resolved by amending the Public Finance Management Act.

“The CS National Treasury needs to address this and your excellency this can be done as a directive or as an amendment to the public finance management Act including instituting a crew accounting, so your PSs don’t struggle as other PSs have struggled before to absorb funds at the last quarter of the financial year,” the Auditor General added.

This occurs as President William Ruto’s administration aims to generate Sh3 trillion in the upcoming fiscal year.

Ruto encouraged the organization to treble existing collections over the following five years last year.

KRA received Sh2.031 trillion in revenue for the fiscal year 2021–2022.