Environmental Audit

What is Environmental Audit

Environmental Audit is the audit whose attention is devoted to the disclosure of Environmental assets and liabilities and Compliance with Environmental Legislations and Conventions, both national and international. An environmental audit could be devoted to measures instituted by an entity to promote economy, efficiency and effectiveness in the daily operations of an Institution and checks how the operations of that particular entity affect the environment. In simple terms Environmental audit " seeks to establish the impact of management actions on the Environment" D.G. Njoroge 2004- former C& AG of Kenya

KENAO'S Mandate

Section 29(i) of the Public Audit Act 2003 gives the Kenya National Audit Office the mandate to carry out audits on economy, efficiency and effectiveness with which the government, a state corporation or a Local Authority uses its resources. Environmental Audit falls under this section since it seeks to establish the three E's stated above in respect to environmental issues. In this regard, KENAO will seek to ensure improved and sustainable benefits to environment in use of available resources

 

Objectives

Part II Section 3 (ii) of the Environmental management and co-ordination Act 1999 states that ‘every person in Kenya is entitled to a clean and healthy environment and has the duty to safeguard and enhance the environment'. Our objectives will therefore be:-

•  To ascertain how far activities of government institutions, Local Authorities and State Corporations have conformed to the existing Environmental Legislation in place in Kenya , and other International conventions.

•  To establish how far the government is effectively controlling environment risks from its own operations.

•  To confirm whether the government and other institutions have put in place effective accountability framework for its environmental programmes and policies.

•  To establish whether the auditee is meeting environmental performance targets it has set up for itself.

•  To report on non-compliance on any of the above, among others.

1. In the conduct of Financial audits, KENAO is required to do the following:

  • highlight initiatives to prevent, abate or remedy damage to the environment
  • support conservation of renewable and non-renewable resources
  • assess consequences of violating environmental regulations and
  • evaluate consequences of various liability imposed by the state

2. In Compliance audits, KENAO will seek to provide assurance that Government activities are conducted in accordance with relevant Government laws, standards and policies ,both at national and international (where relevant) levels

3. In Performance audits, KENAO will strive to ensure that:-

  • Environmental programmes are conducted in an economical, efficient and effective manner
  • indicators of environmental related performance as contained in accountability reports fairly reflect the performance of the audited entity
  • Resources are used with due regard to national benefit and sustainability.

Challenges

•  No Environmental audit guidelines developed by the Office. KENAO will however use the guidelines developed by INTOSAI and the working group on environmental audit and adopt these to its environment..

•  No reference materials. In the meantime the Office will use the INTOSAI and other materials developed by bodies handling environmental concerns.

•  Numerous legislation on waste management with overlapping roles. The office will however review this issue.

Achievements

  • Mandate for the Office has been revised to include value for money audits which cover environmental audits.
  • Under this mandate the Office has set up a separate unit of Environmental Audit with 5(five) Senior Staff. These are highly trained auditors and will be able to learn quickly.
  • Two staff trained by INTOSAI Development initiative (IDI) and AFROSAI-E are fully involved in environmental audit (the branch head and sub-divisional head)
  • Four other staff are undergoing an In-house Environmental Audit training. The training is being conducted by the IDI Trained Staff
  • Two of our staff participated in a meeting of Working Group on Environmental Audit (WGEA) in MOSCOW in November 2005 where they presented a paper on the Kenyan Experience on Environmental Audit.
  • Two members of staff have been involved in collaborative audit involving five (5) African countries whose findings were presented to a meeting of AFROSAI-E Auditor General's in Cape Town in 2005.
  • Senior management is in full support of the Environmental Audit Team.
  • An audit of Non-hazardous waste management by the Nairobi City Council is ongoing and is expected to be completed soon.

Way Forward

(i) With the current strength KENAO will carry out two audits per year.

(ii) The office plans to carry out Environmental audits on the following areas.

  • Non hazardous waste management in various urban centres – (The pilot audit of Nairobi City Council is ongoing and is expected to be completed soon)
  • Audits of hospital waste management (key government hospitals)
  • Effects of Deforestation in Kenya
  • Causes and Effects of the water hyacinth in Lake Victoria
  • Audit of the Nairobi River and the possible impact of pollution to Athi river.
  • Air quality in Nairobi , Mombasa and other towns among others
  • Others