Listen to This Article Enhance your reading experience by listening to this article.

Imende Benjamin and Anthony Mwangi

Billions of taxpayers’ money might go to waste after MPs and governors failed to agree on who should complete 700 stalled projects under the Constituencies Development Fund (CDF) across the country.

MPs want county chiefs to inherit the projects, which stalled after the 2010 constitution was promulgated, arguing they were devolved to the counties.

A special select committee that delivered its report to parliament on Thursday said the projects require only Sh1.3 billion.

However, the governors have warned they will only complete the projects if Parliament allocates them the Sh1.3 billion. Some of the projects are as old as 10 years.

Treasury has released a paltry 6.6 per cent of the annual allocation of Sh137 million to each of the 290 constituencies, stalling many projects with only four months to the end of the current fiscal year.

“The projects have remained incomplete after the Constituency Development Fund Act was repealed and replaced by the National Government-CDF Act that confined implementation of CDF projects to National Government functions,” the report in parliament said.

The report on NG-CDF stalled/incomplete projects was handed to parliament on Tuesday by a 15-member select committee headed by Kanduyi MP Wafula Wamunyinyi.

“This, therefore, limited the scope of projects eligible for funding to projects that fall under the National Government.

Currently, education, security, environment and sports are the main sectors of the fund,” the committee said.

The affected projects are Health (Sh900 million), Community water (Sh146 million), Education (Sh93 million) and Cultural and Sports facilities (Sh21 million).

Others are Agriculture (Sh57 million), Social and multipurpose halls (Sh11 million), Community libraries and resource centres (Sh14 million) and Bridges (Sh 41 million).

“Consequent to the new Act that limited the scope of the functions of NG-CDF, several incomplete projects falling under devolved functions were affected and remains stalled up-to-date with no funds set aside to complete them necessitating the need to involve all stakeholders,” the MPs said in the report.

Technical audit

The blame game emerged after the National Treasury demanded a technical audit of the projects to establish the quality, the status, disputes, costs and if suppliers were paid partly.

Parliament argued there is a possibility the cost of the projects has followed the rising cost of living.

“The quality of the projects that had been abandoned could have deteriorated over the years.

There is a need to ascertain their current quality to establish the structural integrity,” the parliament said.

County chiefs proposed the funds budgeted at both levels of Government with a dedicated County Special Purpose Account to complete the projects.

“Or model Model 2 – Where County Government monies budgeted at both levels of Government but by-passes the County Revenue Fund goes into the dedicated Special Purpose Account,” the County chiefs told MPs.

The Treasury told MPs and governors that it cannot allocate funds directly to counties demanding that both parties follow the right procedure in the constitution.

The Treasury also insists that there must be an audit of the projects to safeguard taxpayers money.

“To ascertain whether the contractors had been paid fully for the works done so far and confirm existing disputes if any,” Treasury said.

Wamunyinyi told People Daily that though the Treasury released Sh20 billion for constituency projects, only Sh2 billion was shared among the electoral units for the 2020/2021 financial year because the balance was used to offset arrears which had accumulated since 2012.

“The Cabinet Secretary has informed our committee that due to low performance of revenue in the financial year 2019/20 and the Covid-19 pandemic it had become impossible for the Treasury to release Sh13.7 billion for the last financial year and Sh4.9 billion arrears that have remained outstanding from 2012 to 2015.