The Public Investments Committee on Governance and Education is this week holding meetings with select Universities, and Technical & Vocational Training Institutions in the Central region to deliberate on Audit Queries raised by the Reports of the Auditor General.

The Committee in a session chaired by Kilome Constituency MP Hon. (Eng). Thuddeus Nzambia sat in Nyeri County to address Audit queries raised by the  Auditor General. The audit queries cover Universities’ and Technical & Vocational Institutions’ Financial Reports for three Financial years dating back from 2018/2019 to 2020/2021.

First to appear before the  Committee was the Principal of the Nyandarua National Polytechnic Mr. Felix Mung’atu, whose session ended prematurely after the auditors informed Members  that he had not submitted responses and therefore, scrutiny was not possible.

Next to appear before the Committee was the Principal of Nyeri National Polytechnic Mr. David  Mwangi. One of the issues raised in the queries was ethnic imbalance in the institution’s workforce.

According to Mr. Mwangi, most of the audit queries had been resolved prior to today’s meeting. He told the MPs that the reported biase in the institution’s workforce is because a majority of casual labourers always tend to come from the college’s environs.

In the subsequent presentations, the legislators learned the gap in knowledge of the Audit and Reporting processes among the managements of the learning institutions, with a majority reported to have only submitted their responses to the OAG a few day’s or hours before today’s meeting.

Making remarks, the session Chair Hon. Nzambia noted that it is quite unfortunate that school principals and their teams do not know when to submit responses to questions asked and  some of them were unaware of the contents of an Auditor General’s report. "We urge the Treasury and Auditor General to organize sensitization and capacity building sessions with these institutions to enable them understand this critical process of accountability on their expenditures,” said  Hon.  Nzambia. 

Other institutions scheduled to appear before the Committee include: Nyandarua Institute of Science and Technology, Gatanga Technical and Vocational College, Mathenge Technical Training Institute, Mathioya Technical and Vocational College, Tetu Technical and Vocational Training College, Karatina University, Kirinyaga University, Mukurwe- Ini Technical Training Institute, The Michuki Technical Training Institute, Kieni Technical and Vocational College, Dedan Kimathi University of Technology, and Kipipiri Technical & Vocational College.