Cdf

The successes of the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) as a strategy for rural development in Kenya. The Constituency Development Fund (CDF) concept came into effect in the year 2003 following the enactment of a private members bill legislation i.e. the CDF Act of 2003 that required that at least 2.5% of the government’s ordinary revenue be allocated to the 210 constituencies to facilitate development in the constituency level. This was a better method of district development than its predecessors: (i)

The District Focus for Rural Development (DFfRD), initiated in the 1980’s which was more of a bureaucratic process than participation, with funding subject to fluctuations in allocation from the treasury and consequently the parent ministry.

(ii)

The Local Authority Transfer Fund (LATF) which enjoys a 5% of the annual governments revenue in allocation, but whose huge overhead costs and the fact that many local authorities are bogged by debts and mismanagement, the impacts of the same have been negligible.

The funds allocation is done on the two basis, one on a flat rate basis – this accounts for 75% of the annual CDF monies while the remaining 25% is allocated on the basis on constituency poverty levels. From the fund, the constituency committee through the help of the manager – a recently created position that injects professionalism into the fund, can spend 10% on education support activities viewed as projects for purposes of the act e.g. constituency bursaries. However, from the CDF act 2003, the percentage allowed for emergency reserve (this is not usually committed but is to be set aside to address emergencies that arise at the constituency level from time to time) is 5% of the years allocation, that allowed for office expenditure all account for a maximum of 3% of the specific CDF allocation for the year and reimbursements for officers shall not exceed 3% of the annual allocation . This implies that the money free for development (including the educational ceiling expenditure

allowed) is a whooping 89% or even more depending on the efficiencies. Such a level of efficiency even makes some of the best managed NGO’s pale in comparison, no wonder in the few years of its existence, the fund has impacted heavily on the lives of Kenyans and underneath are some of the successes of the CDF fund. The fund has enabled Kenya to attain real economic and resource decentralization, something that had been elusive since independence. The decentralization is considered real in the light of two overriding aspects i.e. the power to incur expenditure has been devolved to the constituency level. Its important to note that in Kenya, the constituency level is usually a smaller area than a district and where this is not true, then the constituencies boundaries are those of the district. In essence, this implies that the fund is superior in terms of representation to its predecessor, the DFfRD. The grass roots representation is enabled through the appointment of committee members to the CDF committee where they represent the face of the areas they represent or so its assumed. They come with local area priorities and proposals for possible funding. This ensures there is representation to the lowest level. Success is the fact that, unlike other initiatives and Acts, the CDF act has elicited the most level of interest from the media, civil society groups and even the citizens. As a result therefore, the level of awareness on the fund are high thereby contributing to the high rankings the fund has received since its inception. Through the CDF initiative, many students from needy backgrounds have been able to sail through their academics. This is because the fund allows up to 10% to be used as bursary vote head. The CDF has complimented the traditional bursary fund channels e.g. from the ministry, the private sector etc which were not only inadequate but also hard to access. The CDF fund has also ensured that efficient use of the monies is what happens. This is through the ceiling legislation that ensures that there are no overheads, thereby dedicating a huge chunk of the fund into development projects.

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The emergency kitty allowed in the CDF kitty statutes, enables in real time response to emergencies at the constituency level. For instance, in event of emergency e.g. a bridge being washed away by floods, the CDF emergency kitty is the most timely response an area can have pending government budgetary allocation either at the new financial year or through a supplementary budget.

A number of projects and programmes that affect the livelihoods of the people directly have been enacted e.g. health centers, schools, purchase of learning materials, building of social halls/markets/ road maintenance/community water projects etc these have reduced the total average walking distances to the facilities such as health and water points thereby reallocating the time to more development oriented activities. Through the betterment of schools facilities, the overall competitiveness advantage of the former academic giants over the local schools in the spatial economy is slowly being taken care of. The other obvious success, is the fact that the CDF though a product of transformative politics, has vested the implementative, prioritization and most importantly, the appraisal role on the people. In the light of this, a number of MPs in the 9th parliament were voted out due to a number of factors chief among them the mismanagement of the CDF kitty. The fact that the CDF kitty is entrenched in the laws makes it more authoritative as a development strategy in Kenya, enabling it to have the ability to live through regime changes, this is not true for the District Focus for Rural Development which is founded on a presidential decree. The fund has received incredible support and follow up from the media, the legislation, enactment, awareness and implementation. This has made the fund a success in most aspects. The funds support for the local micro-economic

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enterprises and ability to create jobs in the local economy cannot be underestimated. E.g. through the building of schools, health centers etc the local entrepreneurs and professionals have got jobs, thereby expanding the local economies through this form of government expenditure. Despite the listed successes, a number of challenges do exist as far as the funds performance is concerned. For instance, there have been cases of fund embezzlement. This led to the need by the government to employ managers who will be attached to each Constituency to inject professionalism in the CDF operations. Proper prioritization has also been a challenge leading to many constituencies undertaking multiple projects i.e. spreading the resources wide but thin, in this respect some projects have been ongoing since the funds inception. This has the negative effect of increasing the target projects costing especially when inter year inflations are taken into account. The benefits of such projects have also been delayed as a result of this. There have been cases where outgoing MPs had made commitments in principle to undertake certain projects even before disbursement only to be voted out of office. This has given the new MPs a nightmare in balancing the resurgent and emergent project needs while at the same time maintaining a delicate balance not to be seen as unwilling to undertake the projects that were in the ‘pipeline’. Its also difficult to implement projects that cut across constituency boundaries especially where the MPs of the neighboring constituencies are of different political inclinations. This has in many cases led to un-necessary duplication and establishment of micro-projects that are either not economical, efficient or both. Within the constituency itself, there are areas that are faced by opposing political ideologies that turn the CDF concept as a political battle ground at the constituency level, with unwarranted project delays or objections. The representative ness of the CDF committees – one of the most vital organs in the implementation of the fund, has been left in the hands of the politicians

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notably the sitting MPs who in most cases appoint their cronies to sit in these committees. This has the effect of eroding the overall trust of the populace on the fund operations which some consider clandestine. A number of politicians have also attempted to use the CDF monies as a political bait i.e. in some areas, councilors or councilor wannabe’s masquerade as the bursary section members with powers to influence allocation decisions in order to gain political mileage. The apparent lack of follow up mechanisms within the CDF fund systems have not yielded the best results in most areas. For instance, there are projects that have never been initiated or completed in some areas within the projected time line, this is largely due to the absence of follow-up, unlike funds from e.g. development partners or direct government expenditures which are usually open to scrutiny and maintain an open book policy. The fact that the fund is tagged to a percentage of the governments annual revenue (7.5%) means that the funds allocation depends on the economic performance. i.e. in event of an economic decline, then the funds that shall reach the constituency levels will like wisely dwindle with a sure negative boomerang effect on the incumbent MP who will be hard pressed to absolve self from luck luster performance blame. REFERENCES: •

Constituencies Development Fund Act of 2003.

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http://www.associatedcontent.com/user/12514/jem_geek.html Accessed on Thursday 16th October 2008. Copyright© 2008 by Mwalili Samuel Chaku

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