Auditor General Report: Office of The Attorney General Cannot Account For Sh300M

Auditor General Edward Ouko

Auditor General report has uneartheddisturbing inconsistencies within the office of AG Githu Muigai. The Office of the Attorney-General and Department of Justice had a total budget for the year 2014/2015 of Kshs.3,482,018,843 for both recurrent and development expenditure. However, the Office utilised a total of Kshs.3,002,775,301 resulting in an underutilization of Kshs.479,243,542 (13%) of the total budget.

Further, the office did not receive Kshs.801,509,542 (21%) of the planned exchequer releases to implement its annual objectives.

Examination of the recurrent account bank reconciliation statement revealed payments in cash book not in bank statement of Kshs.104,619,219.36 out of which Kshs.35,744,293 have been long outstanding and also payments in bank statement but not in cash book amounting to Kshs.53,132,463 out of which Kshs.45,162,116 have been long outstanding. Although the AG Office has explained that they have adjusted their cash book with Kshs.33,127,388 and Kshs.33,078,871 respectively and further explained that most of the payments in bank and not in cash book were pay advances that were paid by Central Bank of Kenya on their behalf to foreign banks, no analysis was provided to support and justify the adjustments. In the circumstances, the cash and cash equivalents balance of Kshs.93,871,592 30 could not be confirmed by the OAG.

The statement of receipts and payments reflects proceeds from domestic and foreign grants of Kshs.300,000,000 as at 30 June 2015. It was alleged that the donor agencies paid the funds directly to recipient projects/programs and the expenditure incurred thereon in form of Research, Studies, Project Preparation, Design and Supervision. However, no supporting documentation has been provided for audit review to confirm the amount received and spent by the Office of the Attorney-General and Department of Justice. Consequently, Auditor General notes thst it was not possible to confirm the accuracy and propriety of the revenue or expenditure of Kshs.300,000,000.

Further, Ouko highlighted weaknesses in the internal control systems of the AG office stating that there are no risk management policy in place during the year under review. No risk assessment was carried out to identify and address key areas of concern and document specific controls in response to identified risks – There is no evidence that management assessed the internal controls applicable to address any material weaknesses that could be inherent in the controls.

The report indicates, AG office has not produced operating manuals to guide key processes and controls for receipts from debtors/customers, payments to creditors, personnel, expenditure, assets and liabilities and investments. There was no operational plan for the year under review. Most systems of the Official Receiver are manual, the institution does not have an approved Information Technology (IT) strategic plan and security policy. The institution has no formal, documented and tested disaster recovery plan/emergency procedure in place, to guide on cases of emergency