Owino Opondo
27 April 2008
analysis
Nairobi — For all its stinking greed for wealth, Kenya's Ninth Parliament, which finally expired last December, will be remembered for passing the landmark law that began devolving the national budget to the constituencies.
By endorsing the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) Act in December 2003, the MPs were alive to the long-standing catalogues of anguish visited on the public by successive post-independence governments.
Some of the most notable decentralisation programmes attempted earlier included majimbo (federalism) system (1963), District Development Grant Programme (1966), Special Rural Development (1969/70), Rural Development Fund, and District Development Planning (1971), and the District Focus for Rural Development (1983/84).
The political elites that have run the country since Kenya unshackled itself from colonial rule misused the annual estimates as tools of patronage to lure support.
Regions believed to be opposition strongholds were short-changed in the allocation of funds which resulted in the glaring disparities in national development and whose demons found voice in the post-election violence.
Underlying the protests over the poll results was the rage of poverty. It had to explode. Back to Parliament in 2003.
The CDF Act was clear in its purpose: "To fight poverty at the grassroots level through implementation of community based projects which have long term effects of improving the peoples' economic well being (and to) relieve MPs from the heavy demands of fund-raising for projects which ought to be financed through the Consolidated Fund."
And with that law which became operational in April 2004, MPs decided that 2.5 per cent of the total revenue collected by the government in a year would be deposited in the CDF account for disbursement to the 210 constituencies.
Today, each constituency gets, on average, Sh30 million to build schools, clinics, police posts as well to repair roads and bridges. The money is also used to pay school fees for needy children.
The constituencies received Sh1.26 billion in the 2003/2004 financial year. This was increased to Sh5.6 billion the following year and pushed up to Sh7.25 billion during 2006/2007 fiscal year. The account was allocated Sh10.13 billion in the current financial year that ends in June.
These increments reflect a growing need to directly inject more funds to implement projects in the constituencies. And this explains why the management of such public funds requires the utmost commitment, transparency and accountability.
Wider representation
Last Thursday, Parliament amended the CDF Act and replaced the previous National Management Committee (NMC) with a new board with wider representation from religious organisations and civil society. This is the team that will approve all funding projects proposed by 15-member constituency committees.
Those to sit on the new board are Mr Joel Wanyoike (Institute of Engineers of Kenya), Ms Jennifer Barasa (Kenya National Chamber of Commerce and Industry), Mr Lawrence Majali (Kenya National Union of Teachers), Rt Rev Bishop Martin Kivuva (Kenya Episcopal Conference), Ms Maryam Abdikadir (Supreme Council of Muslims), Ms Rebecca Koskei (National Council of Churches of Kenya), Mr Benson Okundi (Institute of Certified Public Accountants) and Ms Janet Mang'era (Kenya Episcopal Conference).
Others are Dr John Wamakonjio, Mr Simon Chelugui, Mr Omar Mohamed, Mr James Ogundo, Finance and Planning permanent secretaries, the Attorney General, and Clerk to the National Assembly.
Regional and gender balance, academic and professional credentials were some of the benchmarks used by National Planning minister Wycliffe Oparanya in appointing the CDF management board members.
MPs' vested interests
There are a number of operational hitches the new board must urgently address to endear Kenyans more to CDF.
For example, although MPs were united in reminding Finance minister Amos Kimunya to triple the fund's annual allocation, I believe the board should immediately sort out questions the public has for long raised over CDF management.
In the last Parliament, some MPs appointed their political cronies, business associates and relatives to CDF committees. In that way the could remotely control project identification and implementation in favour of their own zones. Or they used that arrangement to implement kickback-motivated initiatives, leading to cases in courts.
The new board should first address the issue of MPs' vested interests in appointment of CDF committee members. There should be a team to vet appointees to ensure selfless persons are picked for the job.
It must also address the issue of district development officers misusing their powers to frustrate the work of CDF teams and the lack of clarity on the number, cadres and salaries of persons employed by constituency committees. Most of them have engaged bogus managers whom they overpay, thereby allowing huge chunks of annual allocations to be gobbled up by spurious administrative work.
Most of these "overload" staff have been hostile to the fund account managers the Treasury posted to all constituencies last year. It will not only be enough for the new board to push for a lean, clear and clean staffing structure, but they must also guarantee the account managers their personal and professional security. This explains the high turnover of officers.
My investigations confirm that a number of MPs in the new Parliament have written to the Clerk's office declaring they were not ready to work with fund account managers at their constituencies. Why? What could the MPs be afraid of?
It should suffice to remind MPs of the role of the fund managers. One, the officers are not meant to supervise CDF committees but to advise them during project formulation so that the goals are realistic and achievable. Two, by the powers conferred on them by the CDF Act, the managers are the custodians of all account records, including the dossier on tendering and procurement.
Three, the funds officers attend CDF committee meetings as ex-officio members to enable them to liaise with line ministries, depending on the nature of projects formulated. Again, this is an advisory role.
Serious audit questions
I fully support calls by MPs to increase CDF allocation. However, serious audit questions have been raised regarding management of the funds so far allocated. Currently, only the Kenya National Audit and, occasionally, district audit officers have been scrutinising how the money is used. There are two problems with this arrangement: First, the national audit office suffers serious capacity problems and is not known to have properly vetted books of accounts of most constituencies. Their reports are, therefore, largely sketchy, allowing pilferage of public funds.
Secondly, it is a settled argument that a good number of district accountants collude with district auditors to overlook crucial questionable figures in the books of CDF records. This is another loophole that the board must urgently fix , for example, by engaging private auditors.
Yes, the new CDF management board has its work cut out. It must ensure public money is spent with utmost prudence.
Owino Opondo is the Nation Parliamentary Editor.
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