REPUBLIC OF KENYA THE PRESIDENCYMINISTRY OF DEVOLUTION AND PLANNING

PRESS STATEMENT ON ARTICLE APPEARING IN THE BUSINESS DAILY OF WEDNESDAY JULY 15TH 2015 HEADLINED WAIGURUS MINISTRY FAILS TO ACCOUNT FOR KSH 3.2 BILLION BILLS.

Our attention has been drawn to the above article attributed to the Auditor Generals Report of the Ministry of Devolution and Planning financial statement for the year ending June, 2014 and wish to state as follows:

1. Pending bills - The Ministry had pending bills amounting to Ksh.4.2 billion that was availed for audit. It was clearly stated to the auditor that the Ksh.1.1 billion pending bills included in the initial statement was what had been received in the accounts unit by the end of the financial year. Subsequently, all pending bills were consolidated, the schedule updated accordingly and availed for audit. There was no case of loss and/or failing to account as alleged in the above article.

2. The Ministry acquired Non-financial assets whose details were prepared and availed for audit. However, the auditor required the presentation to be made in a particular format, which has since been done. There was nothing out of the ordinary on this finding of the auditor since similar observations were made by the Auditor General about other Ministries, some to the tune of Ksh.52.9 billion.

3. Bank Reconciliations and other Accounting matters Discrepancies in records were attributed to the timings between commitment and actual payments whereby payments for the financial year go beyond the end of that financial year. They were subsequently reconciled and availed for audit.

4. The putting together of both Recurrent and Development Vote in the financial statement is the new reporting format as per the requirement of the International Public Sector Accounting Standards and as directed by the National Treasury. There was therefore, no case of poor record keeping. This was not an issue raised by the Auditor General.

5. With regard to Transfer to other Government entities, this was as a result of the re-organization of government whereby certain functions were transferred from the Ministry to the Ministry of Land, Housing and Urban Development while the budget of those functions remained with the Ministry.

The audit process for any Ministry, department or agency of government entails the engagement of the office of the Auditor General in the provision of clarifications of issues raised in the course of the audit process and the Ministry of Devolution and Planning is no exception.In our case, this Ministry comprehensively responded to the above issues and other audit observations on the 4th May, 2015 following the Auditor Generals letter dated 29th April, 2015that gave us only three working days to respond. However, and to our dismay, on examination of the final audit report, we noticed that the Auditor General had not taken our responses into account at all. This is also despite the fact that several top management meetings had earlier been held with the audit team in which the audit team expressed satisfaction with our responses on most of the management queries raised, but which were not considered in the Auditor Generals final audit report.

Further, we wish to observe that the article in the Business Daily is in bad faith as it appears to target this Ministry out of the total of 18 Ministries and many other State Agencies whose audit reports the Auditor General has also submitted to Parliament. This Ministry has nothing to hide and is ready with proper reports for re-audit if so required.

ENG. PETER OGANGA MANGITIPRINCIPAL SECRETARY, PLANNING/ACCOUNTING OFFICER