Council of Governors chairperson Anne Waiguru has dismissed claims that the Office of the Controller of Budget will have real-time access to the County Governments Bank Accounts under the pretext of tracking expenditures.
She was reacting to reports published in some dailies that from January 2023 OCOB is granted access to the accounts.
“We note that this is a decision touching on the management of county governments accounts which to date has not been brought to the attention of counties, who by law, have institutional autonomy,” read the document dated December 8.
Waiguru said that having considered the new development, the Council states that the unilateral decision of the Central Bank of Kenya to grant the OCOB real-time access to county bank accounts is unconstitutional.
” It’s unacceptable and without due regard to procedures,” she said.
She said it is unacceptable because the Controller of Budget is mandated by the Constitution under Article 228 (4), only to oversee the implementation of the budgets by authorising withdrawals from public funds.
Extending such access to the OCOB is tantamount to overstepping and encroaching on the functions and mandate of the Office of the Auditor General.
She said that allowing the OCOB such real-time access to County Accounts undermines the Counties’ institutional autonomy and it’s against the client (counties) agreement with the provider (CBK).
“The outcome of such a system would be an introduction of unwarranted bureaucracies in financial expenditure for counties,” she said.
Waiguru said in any event the practice is discriminatory as the same is not done at the national government’s ministries, departments and agencies.
“Given the foregoing, we ask the Controller of Budget to desist from making such requests for the reasons elaborately outlined, failure to which the COG will be left with no alternative other than to seek redress in a court of law,” she said.
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