All public funds have to be accounted for.
Travelling officers must state how they spent public funds on their foreign trips.
The same article says public money has to be used in a prudent and responsible way.
If it turns out – as it probably appears to be - that public officers are simply travelling for fun and for the sake of it without tangible benefits, that is contrary to the law.
On the question of whether taxpayers have any remedy, the first order of business is that the Auditor General makes a report to Parliament.
Parliament is then to sanction the officers in breach. One of the remedies is recovery of the funds from the officer who is found to have misused funds.
The Public Finance Management Act in Section 196 says public officers are not supposed to spend money otherwise, unless authorised by law.
Those in breach commit an offence and can be jailed for not more than two years or pay a fine not exceeding Sh2 million.
Section 197 says it is criminal for a government officer to fail to account, engage in wasteful expenditure, make false statements or fail to keep proper records of how they spent money.
The major problem with Kenya’s budget system is that it doesn’t consider value for money.
The focus is more on whether there is a document to support expenditure.
If, say you have a budget of Sh1 million, you can buy 1,000 ball pens for Sh1,000 each and account for it – which justifies the expenditure, but doesn’t look at the value for money. It is one area enforcement agencies don’t look at.
On the trips, the benchmarking ones are not useful at all. Some of the expert lessons can be got here. Local data can suffice.
High-level summits with structured exchange of ideas and strong declarations could be useful as they give you traction and public visibility.
But when you carry a delegation of dozens of people, there are questions as to the utility of such attendance.
International trade lawyer spoke to Star
