Punish officials for missing audit records – Business Daily
Workers lay fibre-optic cable in Nyeri town on August 18, 2020. FILE PHOTO | NMG
Public servants who fail to furnish the Auditor-General with documents during review of State expenditure should be punished.
The public auditor revealed it was difficult to ascertain the cost of the multibillion-shilling National Optic Fibre Backbone Infrastructure (Nofbi) due to absent loan agreements, lack of assets registry and missing records of the billions paid to the contractors.
A forensic audit failed to establish how the Chinese government and Exim Bank of China were identified and appointed to finance the fibre optic project — which provides telecommunications connectivity in all the 47 counties.
The limitations of the audit brought home by refusal to provide documents for audit review is unacceptable.
It’s only through quality audits that taxpayers would have comfort that public servants who pilfer State resources can be nabbed.
The lack of punitive action on perpetrators of theft means that culprits always get away after dipping their fingers in the cookie jar.
This eggs on the thieving public servants to continue fattening their pockets while service delivery continues to deteriorate.
