By Azael Masese
The Directorate of School Audit (DSA) will improve the manner school heads manage resources allocated to them.
Part of this will involve the national office visiting individual schools to demand the financial reports.
This is a departure from the past where the directorate waited for the schools to submit the reports.
“We will not wait for schools to submit the reports but will go out to them in the respective institutions,” said Lucy Mugwe, an officer at the directorate.
Failure to file the reports as expected raises suspicions on the accountability of the officers hence the need to change tact.
DSA was set up in 2016 to crack down on corruption in schools and is tasked with scrutinising the use of the billions of shillings sent to schools.
It examines books of accounts to identify the expenditure leakages and report back to the ministry.
“In some cases, a school that has been in existence for more than ten years and yet has not filed its report yet it receives money for expenditure,” she noted.
Notable is the suspense account which she said keeps on growing in some schools, a clear indicator of misuse of the resources.
“Our experience is that this account always grows and this has raised concern and is going to be one of the key areas of our investigation,” she stated.
A suspense account is an account used temporarily to carry doubtful and discrepancies pending their analysis and permanent classification.
Speaking during the Kenya Secondary Schools Heads Association (Kessha) Uasin Gishu County Annual Conference held at Weston Hotel, Nairobi, she said that it should not take long to clear the account.
In some instances, it generates into a blame game between the current and past principals but in future both principals would be called to face the audit together.
She advised the principals to clear the air on the same saying that the suspense account has haunted two principals from the region leading to stress related lifestyles. Be conversant with what is happening as you will be called to account for the same but consult widely before the expenditure,” she advised.
She said that the education is the largest consumer of the Government budget, hence the need to be prudent and accountable.
“You must be conversant with financial accounting procedures to meet the expectations and though you may employ the services of an accountant, the responsibilities rest with you,” she advised.
She expressed concern over multi withdrawals made as possible conduit for the misuse of the resources. Mugwe stated that though the Board of Management (BOM) is expected to oversight the budget, it is often times culpable of the misuse.
