This archive report was first published on 17 July 2020.
On July 17, 2020, Kenya finally got a substantive Auditor-General after a long wait. Nancy Gathungu's appointment brings hope for a new phase in the fight against corruption.
Kenya has been without a substantive Auditor-General since August 2019, when Edward Ouko's eight-year non-renewable term expired. During this period, reports from the office were largely ignored by agencies at the centre of the graft war.
The former holder of the office, Edward Ouko, made comments seen as implicit criticism of other agencies' failure to prosecute and convict corrupt government officials who openly flout laws.
Ms Gathungu has vowed to push for the implementation of MPs' recommendations on audit reports, which include prosecutions and surcharge for lost funds. She also plans to overhaul the State procurement and payments system, which is easily tampered with and is central to halting the looting of billions of shillings through fictitious and inflated tenders.
However, the success of these efforts will depend on a close working relationship between the office, Parliament, the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI), and the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC).
It is not lost to taxpayers that such an effort was shot down in 2014 due to poor working relationships between the office and other State agencies and branches. Recommendations from the Audit Office in 2014 for reforming the procurement system to reduce cases of embezzlement of public funds were ignored by Parliament and never implemented.
