EDITORIAL: Step up graft fight after picking Auditor General

Now that there is a substantive holder of Auditor General’s office, Kenyans need to see a new phase in the fight against corruption where individuals adversely mentioned face the full force of the law.

Kenya has been without a substantive Auditor-General after Edward Ouko retired in August last year when his eight-year non-renewable term expired.

In the past, reports produced by the office have largely been ignored even by agencies at the centre of graft war.

The former holder of the office made comments seen as implicit criticism of other agencies’ failure to prosecute and convict corrupt government officials who openly flout laws.

The newly appointed Auditor-General, Nancy Gathungu, told Parliament she would push for implementation of MPs’ recommendations on audit reports whose sanctions include prosecutions and surcharge for lost funds.

The country needs to see a close working relationship between the office, Parliament, DPP, DCI and EACC in the fight against theft of public resources.

Ms Gathungu told Parliament that she is betting on overhauling the State procurement and payments system that is easily tampered with and is central to halting the looting of billions of shillings through fictitious and inflated tenders.

While such pronouncements offer array of hope, they can only be actualised if all officials involved read from the same page.

It is not lost to taxpayers that such an effort was shot down in 2014 because of poor working relationship between the office and other State agencies and branches.

Recommendations from the Audit Office in 2014 for reforming the procurement system to reduce cases of embezzlement of public funds were ignored by Parliament and never implemented.

Ms Gathungu will have to push Parliament to tackle the enabler of the theft: faulty procurement and payments systems as well as officials and companies named in the phony contracts.

The Auditor General’s office is crucial to assessing whether taxpayers get value for their money and it is the hope of Kenyans that the new holder will uphold the Constitution in her tour of duty.