EDITORIAL: Treasury must act on budget gaps warning

 

The report of the ‘High Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows from Africa’ profiled Kenya, Ghana, Mozambique, Tanzania and Uganda. PHOTO | FILE 

By BUSINESS DAILY

The Treasury cannot just wish away the report published by the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO), which exposes major gaps in the 2015/16 national budget.

Treasury Secretary Henry Rotich, his principal secretary Kamau Thugge and all officials at the Ministry of Finance who are involved in preparation of the national budget must respond to the issues raised by the PBO in the interest of promoting transparency and accountability in national budgeting.

As it is now, the law gives Parliament oversight on the budgeting process, its implementation as well as the utilization of taxpayers’ cash.

The Parliamentary Budget Office is a creature of Parliament that is expected to provide scrutiny and offer professional advice on the entire budgeting process.

When the legally constituted office complains that the Treasury has denied it access to information, that amounts to a few bureaucrats at the Ministry of Finance denying Kenyans their constitutionally provided right to information on how their taxes are utilised.

The PBO has made picked out specific issues that need to be addressed. The first one is that the Treasury has not made available for scrutiny allocations of up to Sh558 billion made to State corporations in the 2015/16 financial year.

The excuse that the detailed statements of expenditure are too bulky to be made available is hardly convincing. Given the constant claims of theft of public funds by both civil servants and officials of State corporations, failing to subject to scrutiny the expenditure of all organs of government is tantamount to giving a blank cheque to the pilferers.

The PBO has also outlined cases of double-allocation of funds, such as a Sh5 billion provision to the national government for contingencies, and yet another vote of Sh1 billion to the State Department for Devolution.

Another unexplained allocation is Sh5 billion for “temporary employees,” in addition to a Sh6 billion provision for tourism recovery that does not have a detailed breakdown of how it will be spent.

It is regrettable that the Budget Office, a non-partisan agency whose word is supposed to carry a lot of weight, has resulted to pleading with the Treasury to provide it with information and explanations.

Parliament must play its oversight role with firmness to give authority to the Budget Office, or risk relegating it to a toothless barking dog.

For a start, all Treasury officials who may have denied the Office information or explanations should be summoned and reprimanded in ac