Auditor General Nancy Gathungu is doing a sterling job combing the books of accounts of Kenya’s recklessly extravagant parastatals.
She deserves credit for, in the space of a year since she took over in July 2020, she has speeded up the audits and made the public aware of the massive financial indiscipline that plagues our bureaucracy.
She has just presented to MPs a report that indicates the Privatisation Commission, appointed to sell loss-making parastatals to the public, has spent Sh148 million with nothing to show for it.
The Kenya Meat Commission, Kenya Wine Agencies Ltd, Tourism Finance Corporation, Chemelil, Miwani, Sony and Nzoia Sugar companies ought to have been sold-off or leased by now.
After the reports are presented to MPs nothing really happens save for the now rather infuriating ritual of the errant public servants being paraded in Parliament and patted on the back by pliant MPs.
The recommendations never seem to elicit any punitive action which can send a strong and unequivocal message that messing with public money is a serious offence for which perpetrators must be made to regret.
We call upon the EACC and the DCI to send a strong message against corruption and financial indiscipline.
They need not wait for the Auditor General’s report. Both institutions have the capacity and the ability to investigate and prosecute these irresponsible chiefs whose only care in the world is to line their pockets.
