Treasury to improve financial reporting standards

The National Treasury plans to improve engagement with the auditor general’s office to avoid misinterpretation of government financial reports.

This comes as numerous cases of unsupported expenditure claims emerge with the treasury and the auditor general maintaining that it did not mean that public funds are lost.

Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich said supporting expenditure documents are usually presented to parliament at the same time the audits are concluded.

“This is usually confirmed later by the National Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee when respective accounting Officers of Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDAs) table the requisite expenditure supporting documents,” Mr Rotich said.

His assessment is supported by Jason Lakin the general manager of the International Budget Partnership who says treasury has the obligation to account for all government expenditure before the parliamentary budget committee.

“The story never ends with the audit report being tabled in parliament. Parliament discusses the audit report and then decides on the actions to be taken,” Mr Lakin said.

Treasury has previously held that the auditor general had on several occasions failed to hold a final audit review meeting that would give officers from his ministry time to clear the air on the audit- queries raised.

Auditor General Edward Ouko said his office is also working on improving its reporting standards but will remain vigilant in ensuring the proper use of public funds.

“We must improve our delivery to make it transparent, accountable and participatory,” Mr Ouko said.