Auditor-General faults counties for budgeting without input of public
By Rawlings, December 5, 2022
A number of devolved units are passing and implementing their budgets without the views of the citizens, a new special audit shows.
Auditor General Nancy Gathungu in her latest Special Audit report has exposed that 18 counties are not conducting civil education and are using poor mechanisms of sharing budget documents.
Gathungu carried out the audit on the level of public participation for the 2021-22 budgets for 18 counties.
The counties include Nakuru, Garissa, Isiolo, Meru, Kirinyaga Kilifi, Mombasa, Makueni, Kiambu, Narok, Kisii, Homa Bay, Kisumu, Turkana Kakamega, Bungoma, Elgeyo Marakwet, and Nairobi.
“The audit observed that the county governments had not promoted citizen’s participation in the budget-making process. Consequently, the budget prepared for financial 2021-22 under review may not have reflected the views and priorities of the citizens,” the report reads in part.
The auditor states in her first-ever report on public participation, that the devolved units are not giving their residents timely information on the venue and days of the meeting while others are engaging in ‘biased’ mobilization of their residents for public participation.
“There was low level of actual citizen participation in the budget process due to lack of civil education and failure to use appropriate channels to disseminate information to citizens” the report reads.
According to Gathungu, the budget documents are also bulky and not easy to comprehend by most of residents.
The report states that out of 2,026 sampled respondents, 1,320 were aware of the need to participate in the budget-making process.
However, only 345 participated during the budget-making process for 2021-22 which was under review.
The report also states that the counties lack feedback mechanisms for responding to citizen submissions.
Out of the 345 citizens who participated in the budget-making process, only 128 received feedback from the county governments with regard to their petitions and challenges. “The audit noted that counties lacked structured feedback mechanisms to respond to citizens’ petitions and challenges. This is contrary to section 89 of the County Governments act, 2012.