Kisumu city lights up after dark. A new assessment ranks Kisumu and Nairobi among the worst counties at spending development funds. Photo: Victor Ochieng/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
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Kisumu, Nairobi among worst users of development funds.
Kisumu and Nairobi are among the counties performing worst on the use of development funds, according to the source credited below.
Background
Absorption of development funds is the measure of whether a county can turn a budget into a completed project. Counties that score badly usually share the same causes: procurement started late in the financial year, contractors who stop work because previous invoices are unpaid, exchequer releases that arrive in the last quarter, and project lists that change with the political cycle. The money that is not spent by year end does not simply carry forward untouched; it is re-budgeted, and the project slips another year.
Why it matters here
In Kibra the slippage is legible on the ground. Drainage that was budgeted and not built, a footbridge half completed, a health centre with a building but no equipment, a lighting mast without power. Every one of those is a development line that was appropriated and not absorbed. Poor absorption is often described as a technical failure, but in a dense settlement it is experienced as flooding, as darkness and as a longer walk to a clinic.
What to watch next
Whether the county settles its pending bills so contractors return to site, what the next Controller of Budget report shows, and whether the county assembly requires project-level reporting.
This story was put together by K N N from material first published by the Standard.
That was a Kibra News Network report, read by an A I voice.
Kisumu and Nairobi are among the counties performing worst on the use of development funds, according to the source credited below.
Background
Absorption of development funds is the measure of whether a county can turn a budget into a completed project. Counties that score badly usually share the same causes: procurement started late in the financial year, contractors who stop work because previous invoices are unpaid, exchequer releases that arrive in the last quarter, and project lists that change with the political cycle. The money that is not spent by year end does not simply carry forward untouched; it is re-budgeted, and the project slips another year.
Why it matters here
In Kibra the slippage is legible on the ground. Drainage that was budgeted and not built, a footbridge half completed, a health centre with a building but no equipment, a lighting mast without power. Every one of those is a development line that was appropriated and not absorbed. Poor absorption is often described as a technical failure, but in a dense settlement it is experienced as flooding, as darkness and as a longer walk to a clinic.
What to watch next
Whether the county settles its pending bills so contractors return to site, what the next Controller of Budget report shows, and whether the county assembly requires project-level reporting.
