The High Court has extended orders suspending the establishment of the presidential task force on forensic audit of public debt.
Justice Lawrence Mugambi at the same time allowed a request made by the petitioners in the case -Dr Magare Gikenyi and Eliud Matindi- to serve some of the respondents through a newspaper of national circulation by way of advertisement.
This is after the court was informed that some of the respondents in their individual capacity have not been served with the petition in court.
Those to be served are the auditor general and persons appointed to the presidential task force for forensic audit of public debt.
They have been listed as Auditor General, Nancy Onyango, Prof Luis Franceschi, Engineer Shammah Kiteme, Vincent Kimosop, Institute of Engineers of Kenya, Dr Abraham Rugo, and Dr Aaron Thegeya.
Controller of Budget, Katiba Institute, Kituo Cha Sheria and Operation Linda Jamii who are the interested parties in the case will also be served the same way.
The orders were extended till September 18 when further directions will be issued in the case.
The court issued the orders earlier this month after the petitioners argued that the work of auditing public debt is a constitutionally mandated function of the auditor general and not any task force appointed by the executive or any other person.
Before this, President William Ruto appointed a presidential task force through Executive Order No. 4.
The establishment was part of the austerity measures following the President's withdrawal of the contentious Finance Bill 2024.
The purpose of the task force was to audit the public debt within 90 days and report back to the President.
However, the two petitioners told the court that the President's actions usurped the mandate of an independent office of the Auditor General.
This they said made it unconstitutional as any further action will lead to loss of public confidence and outright abuse of political power.
"The office of the Auditor-General is independent. Duplicating roles is a waste of scarce public resources since the task force will essentially be performing roles of existing public offices, contrary to the constitution," they said.
