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News that the Kenyan embassy in Berlin has no records of fixed deposit accounts holding a whopping Sh38.8 million makes for grim reading of how public funds are being managed by the foreign missions across the globe.
The information contained in the Auditor-General’s report shows the casual manner in which those charged with the obligation of spending public funds take their jobs – let alone their lack of understanding of the high price we all pay for it.
That this has and continues to happen in this age of smart technology and in a country that is at the cutting edge of things technology is even more confounding.
RELATED: An Attaché at the Kenyan Embassy in Berlin, Germany Disappears with Sh38 Million Account Records
Even if the financial attaché disappeared with the paper records as revealed in the audit, it beats logic that there was no backup yet the policy is that ministries, departments and agencies of the government are supposed to keep soft copy records of all financial transactions.
It is a clear indication that government functionaries are not using the technology available to them to back up hard copy data. It is the reason that a disaster in an office such as a fire or theft will leave it without any records of its past transactions.
The government was supposed to be functioning on the basis that the Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS) would hold all records of financial transactions away from paper records.
Maintaining only paper records and failing to use IFMIS has opened the government to theft of public funds.
- Originally published on Business Daily