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Mars Group response to a statement by Budget Committee

The Kenya Treasury has yet to issue a statement on our Memorandum, but today’s Statement by four members of the Budget Committee is noted. That they have so quickly read, analysed and reported on a Supplementary Budget is also noteworthy, and invites no further comment.

However, and very unfortunately, the Statement does not address the problem we have with the Supplementary Budget approved by Parliament on May 20th 2009. That problem is succinctly detailed in our Memorandum to the Budget Committee of May 24th 2009.

To reach the conclusions we reached Mars Group analysed over 26,000 budget line items – line-by-line – and prepared detailed spreadsheets, some of which have been submitted to both Committee and Treasury officials.

The reconciliation conducted by the Budget Office of Parliament dwelt on summaries, at Vote Level, produced by Treasury and not the 26,000 + budget line items which Mars Group Kenya has scrutinised and reported on. By accepting this cursory approach, the Budget Committee members who spoke today are perpetuating the error complained of and actually sweeping a serious issue under the carpet.
They are also disregarding valuable information that can assist them in the forthcoming Independent Forensic Audit.

The Supplementary Budget remains as erroneous and as full of discrepancies as its earlier version.

In our humble opinion, and as private citizens, the erroneous estimates can only be corrected by the Independent Forensic Audit, and we reiterate our earlier requests to the Budget Committee namely:

1. The Independent Forensic Audit as recommended by the Joint Committee Report should be empanelled to commence its work immediately and should complete its report ahead of the National Budget 2009-10, in order to restore public confidence in the budget books of the Kenyan Ministry of Finance

2. The Independent Forensic Audit should commence its enquiry with the approved Supplementary Budget of 2009.

This is the challenge our Members of Parliament have to deliver. Only then can public confidence be restored in the Treasury and the documents it has been tabling in Parliament to obtain approval of expenditure and taxation.

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We stand by our work and are ready and willing to present it to the Independent Forensic Audit as soon as it is empanelled. In any event our information is already widely available on the internet and particularly at our Government Portal

We applaud the Minister for actions we understand he is taking to better resolve what is not an impossible problem to fix. We expect Parliamentarians to do their duty by those they represent, correct this grave mistake, Leave politics out of this and deliver Agenda 4 of the National Accord, which apart from making life bearable for Kenyans also comprehensively deals with corruption.

Accountability is here and it is here to stay because this is what the Citizens of this great country want – Democracy and Accountability!

Campaign as Kenyans to Save your Shillings for Agenda Four!

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