Kilifi cited for low absorption of development cash

Controller of Budget Margret Nyakong’o wants the Kilifi County government to identify and address issues causing delays in the implementation of development projects.

This comes as members of the Kilifi County Assembly are expected to pass a Sh14 billion budget for the 2021/2022 financial year on Wednesday this week.

A report from Ms Nyakang’o’s office on Kilifi’s budget implementation for the first nine months of the 2020/2021 financial year cites a low absorption of development funds.

The county government used only Sh562 million from the annual development budget allocation of Sh2.58 billion, the report says.

That represented 21.8 percent of the annual development budget.

In May, MCAs rejected Governor Amason Kingi’s proposed Sh14 billion budget on the grounds that it had omitted community development projects.

MCAs then diverted Sh125 million in Mr Kingi’s budget to various development projects in wards.

But Governor Kingi rejected the changes, explaining that the county needed to comply with demands from the National Treasury that pending bills be paid.

Public Investment and Accounts chairman George Baya cited slow tendering processes and delays in paying pending bills as a major reason for poor implementation of development projects.

“Projects are being allocated a budget, but some departments have few procurement officers and this is delaying the tendering process,” he said.

Delays in paying contractors have prompted them to abandon their work.

Many contractors in Kilifi, he said, depend on partial payments to work effectively and any delays in paying them can interrupt projects and extend completion time. 

He noted that some contractors have gone bankrupt because they were unable to pay their bank loans.

For the last two weeks, the executive and MCAS have camped at a Malindi hotel to iron out their differences.

Mr Baya said that MCAs had asked the budget committee to draft a report on their demands that they will only pass the budget on the condition that all pending bills and incomplete projects are factored into the supplementary budget.

He added that MCAs were in danger of losing the trust of their electorate and they risk being voted out in the 2022 elections.

“These are projects that were proposed by the community and it will be very bad for us to start campaigning while there are stalled projects. What will we tell our voters?” he said.

The county government, he said, had established that unverified bills amount to Sh700 million while verified ones total Sh400 million.

He said he needs a total of Sh20 million to complete pending projects in his Watamu ward.

Some of them are the Watamu fishing project that was started in 2014/2015 and requires Sh4 million to be completed, and the Sh8 million Manyeso Dairy Plant in Gede that requires Sh1.2 million more.

Budget committee chair Albert Kiraga faulted the national government for delays in implementing projects. The National Treasury, he said, deprives the county government of its rightful allocations.

"As a county, we have been trying all the best to budget for our programmes and ensure that they are implemented and completed in time, but our main issue is with the disbursement of funds from the National Treasury which is never timely,” he said.

He said that by Friday last week, the county was yet to receive Sh1.5 billion from the Treasury.

He said late disbursements make it hard for the county to utilise its allocations and in some cases some of the money returns to the Treasury.

“The money comes in late, the process of getting the funds from the accounts is always tedious and time-consuming, and by the time we get access to the vote the time is over and we never use the money,” he said.

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