Treasury CS Henry Rotich closes three illegal NYS accounts

National Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich when he appeared before National Assembly Public Accounts Committee on August 23, 2016. PHOTO | JEFF ANGOTE |

Three National Youth Service (NYS) bank accounts that were opened without the authority of the Treasury have been closed, Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich said Tuesday.

He told the National Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee that the Treasury had also started an inventory of accounts opened by ministries, departments and government agencies to ascertain if they were being operated legally.

“The Public Finance Management Act is now in place which specifies sanctions for officers found operating such accounts,” he said.

Mr Rotich, who was answering queries in a special audit by the auditor-general on the loss of Sh791 million from the NYS, said one of the illegal accounts was opened at Kenya Commercial Bank and the other two at the National Bank of Kenya.

The CS was, however, taken to task by committee chairman Nicholas Gumbo who wanted to know why he was not aware how many other “illegal” accounts were being operated by ministries and parastatals.