The Controller of Budget (CoB) has reaped big in a new deal with the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) aimed at giving the budget office powers to access the bank accounts of county governments in real-time.
The deal marks the end of a protracted battle between the CoB and the CBK, where the former has been pushing to gain access to the accounts of the devolved units to no avail.
According to the Controller of Budget Margaret Nyakang’o, the lack of access has been hampering any efforts to track the expenditure of counties, especially in payment of suppliers, giving the county bosses a loophole to make irregular and discriminatory payments.
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Nyakang’o says the new payment platform will weed out the mischief and improve efficiency among the counties, a thing she has been pushing to curb.
“The CBK came back to us with a system that now links us (CoB and CBK) and Treasury in real-time and where once I approve payments online, they are locked and cannot be changed. It will not be possible to alter the requisitions,” said Nyakang’o.
“Now counties will not be able to play around with suppliers and contractors as it has been happening all along.”
In the current tracking system, the controller of budget only gets to know about the counties’ spending through the quarterly reports, a period which has been used to manipulate payments after the withdrawal of money from the consolidated fund.
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The CoB boss adds that in most cases, suppliers who decline to give kickbacks end up falling at the bottom of the pecking order when it comes to money reimbursements, despite the office approving those payments in time.
“We are approving requisitions from the counties, but then there is mischief at the payment. We cannot tell who has been paid until someone comes back and complains, but when we check the requisition, that contractor was number one, yet he or she has not been paid,” said Nyakang’o.
The office of the Controller of Budget is tasked with the responsibility of monitoring the implementation of budgets of both the county and national governments.
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