Financial Stewardship

At work, we have internal controls in place to ensure that finances are being used appropriately:-

•          Every transaction has to have supporting documentation, including authorisation.
•          Reimbursements aren't given without receipts.
•         Cash counts are done regularly, and the cash and bank account balances are reconciled every month.

That would be the norm for every organization, surely? Seemingly not. In the Daily Nation (one of Kenya’s larger circulated newspapers) on Wednesday, was an article headed ‘Sh300bn missing, reveals audit’. It seems that of the Kenyan government’s expenditure for the financial year 2011/2012, Sh303billion (that’s about £2.2billion or $3.6billion) “can be regarded as not having been properly accounted for”.  The Auditor General stated the reasons for this as:-

1. Unsupported expenditure
2. Excess expenditure
3. Pending bills
4. Management of imprests
5. Maintenance of bank and cash accounts
6. Maintenance of accounting records

As far as I can see, that doesn't leave much (if anything) that they’re doing right! Perhaps more worrying is the statement that this was an improvement from the previous year, when there were no clean accounts!

In light of this disclosure, it helps me get some perspective and see that, whilst the internal control reviews that are conducted in every SIL entity across Africa, will always come up with some points, we’re actually not doing that badly at all!