Busia Senator Okiya Omtatah now proposes to access IFMIS to monitor and scrutinise all transactions done by Treasury to counties
This according to first term legislator will help in mitigation of the loss of public funds meant to uplift the face of devolution
Senators conclusively and precisely stated that the move will get many corrupt governors off-guard as they move from relying only analogue AG’s audit reports to Digital Scrutiny
Busia Senator Okiyah Omtatah Okoiti has now challenged Integrated Financial Management Information System [IFMIS] to allow accessibility for all county financial transactions to Senators
The system which is domiciled in the Ministry of Treasury, currently, do not have regulations where Senators can open the system, access the county financial transactions or may be request all transactions made in their respective counties
Under Article 96 of the constitution, Senate participates in law making function of Parliament by considering, debating and approving Bills concerning to counties as provided.
“We can’t therefore continue with this kind of Public Relations, sitting in a boardroom oversighting what we don’t know!. As Senators, we should be in a position to trace every transaction made by IFMIS to all 47 County Executives,” Omtatah observed
He said the move will enable them [Senators] track any diverted funds by the corrupt governors and other county officials, where they have always been accused of diverting monies meant for project X to project Y.
According to Omtatah, who is known to fight for the common mwananchi, he said failure for senators to force the treasury to give them such powers and functions, will always result to loss of public funds within the counties
“If we senators, have the powers to oversight these counties, why can’t the IFMIS open read-only-documents tab, we shall not tamper with their transactions, ours is only to see which money went where; so that by the time we grill these counties, we knows exactly how much was received within the given period, how much was budgeted for project A and how it was transacted,” he added
Omtatah remarks were backed by Homabay Senator Moses Kajwang’ who additionally, observed a lot of disservice done by executive to parliament as a whole, as pertains to the separation of powers and their legislative role
“I think the debate should be, you can’t oversight what you don’t know, the analogue of relying voluminous documents from the Office of the Auditor General [OAG] should be of past century.
We are moving to digital services and we should be in a position also to get these transactions on line as they happen from Treasury to all recipients,” Kajwang’ voiced
Kisii Senator Dr Richard Onyonka also made his observations, stating that should be the directions going forward so as to get governors red-handed and off-guard
“Because some of county executives led by corrupt governors have been lynching financial documents, if we push this IFMIS system to allow us access, will help to have the overview of the projects paid and unpaid, from there we demand surcharge of the unaccounted funds,” Onyonka concluded