By The Mountain Journal Reporter
Laikipia county
government in Central Kenya has demonstrated the ability to work with the
private sector as it has produced its audit and financial statements.
The County Government in the second year has
demonstrated high level transparency through consistent release to the public
financial statements, being a best practice that is more pronounced in the
private sector network.
Under the leadership of Governor Ndiritu
Muriithi, Laikipia has emerged the only out of 47 counties that has dared to
release the audit reports to the public.
Muriithi won the 2017 election after he
floored the former Joshua Irungu and has set a development pace for the county.
Governor Ndiritu
Despite the setback, there are a lot of efforts
being made towards clean financial statements.
Top county managers are under strict instructions
to keep proper financial records, said the governor, a former World Bank consultant.
Muriithi believes that public entities have the
responsibility of laying bare their financial statements to the stakeholder as
part of promoting transparency and accountability.
Deputy Governor John Mwaniki attended the
presentation of the audit and financial statements to the stakeholders.
Deputy Governor John Mwaniki
“Our ultimate aim is to have clean books –with
unqualified opinion. It’s not easy but we are definitely heading there,” says
Paul Njenga, the Chief Officer of Finance and Economic planning.
Credit rating
Apart from promoting transparency and
accountability, the county government has a more plausible reason for its
consistency on releasing its financial results- credit rating.
The county has been mulling borrowing from the
private sector by floating an infrastructure bond to finance its development.
Yes- a county government to float a bond.
The government burns midnight oil working out
ways of improving its score Audited financial statements for year 2018/2019 a
journey through the rugged terrain of fiscal balance, the relentless efforts to
achieving clean, unqualified financial statements and its rewards so far.
Expenditure
According to the auditors, the county overspent
on wages after the court temporarily put brakes on planned redundancies.
During the year under review the county
government had projected savings from the redundancies, but the local
government workers union obtained court orders that stopped the execution of
the process.
The report explained that the anticipated savings
were not realized and the affected workers had to be paid wages that had not
been budgeted for.
Bonds
Infrastructure Bond although not out of the woods
yet, this was a remarkable feat for a public entity that started off with a
disclaimer from the auditors several years ago.
In addition, the governor said to enhance
transparency his administration established a directorate of Financial
Reporting, continuous staff training and enhanced own source revenue
collection. In 2014/2015, the organization got an adverse opinion with matters
forming the basis of opinion reducing to 11. This means that the financial
misstatements, individually or in aggregate, are both material and pervasive to
the financial statements.
The following year 2015/2016, the auditor
gave the county a qualified opinion after matters forming the basis of the
auditor’s opinion reduced further to eight. The same happened in 2016/2017 when
the matters under question dropped further to seven. In 2017/2018, despite the
auditors awarding a qualified opinion the matters forming the basis had slid
down from seven to nine.
However, the county made a significant leap in
2018/2019 as it made efforts to have clean financial statements.
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