Treasury to vet Sh500m county flagship projects

The National Treasury

The National Treasury building in Nairobi.

Photo credit: File | Nation Media Group

What you need to know:

  • Counties will have to submit projects above Sh500 million through the Public Investment Management team at the Treasury.
  • Most county projects have been delayed, stalled and failed due to inadequate stakeholder engagement, misalignment to national priorities.

The National Treasury will begin vetting flagship projects selected by county governments to curb wastage through stalled and incomplete works.

In a circular it said it has included county governments among ministries departments and agencies which will have to obtain clearance before undertaking Vision 2030 flagship projects.

Counties will have to submit projects above Sh500 million through the Public Investment Management team at the Treasury to evaluate whether there are sufficient resources and if they meet national priorities under vision 2030.

The move is meant to forestall the rise in white elephant projects that number 522 projects worth Sh1 trillion, according to the World Bank, some of which were initiated during the Mwai Kibaki era.

“The National Treasury will vet and approve projects seeking to attain the status of Vision 2030 flagship projects before their inclusion in the medium-term plans. County governments are advised to use the tenets of these criteria in the identification of projects,” Treasury Cabinet Secretary Ukur Yatani said.

The CS said that the number of projects under Vision 2030 has increased from 93 in the Vision blueprint to 216 in the third medium-term plans.

Most projects have been delayed, stalled, and failed due to inadequate stakeholder engagement, misalignment to national priorities, and lack of provisions for project readiness aspects.

The government told the International Monetary Fund that, it is negotiating with contractors to allow it to cancel 437 projects started during the Mwai Kibaki and Uhuru Kenyatta regimes, setting the stage for compensation claims by suppliers.

The World Bank had said that 40 per cent of the projects became white elephants during the transition to devolution with 195 irrigation projects initiated in the second term of President Kibaki, not being allocated funds by county governments.

About 53 projects are dormant because of diverse factors including litigation, wayleave challenges, acquisition of land, and funding suspension by the donor.

Another reason for staling projects has been the imposition of budget ceilings by the Treasury keen on taming expenditure.