A Survey of the Budgetary Practices Among Constituency Development Funds in Nairobi County

Abstract

A budget is an integral part in the management of any organization; whether public or private. It forms the basis for planning and controlling the use of scarce financial resources in the accomplishment of organization goals and objectives, (Schick 1999). Budgets therefore occupy a leading place among the special tools of management employed to direct and control the affairs of large and small organizations. They are used by governments, industries and other private organizations as well as families. This was a case study aimed at establishing the budgetary practices among Constituency Developments (CDF) allocation in Nairobi county and in Kenya in general. The objectives of the study was to establish the budgetary practices among CDFs in Nairobi county. The case study was carried out in the eight constituencies of the Nairobi county. The population of interest was the CDF management committee and project managers as they are the ones concerned with issues of budgeting in these constituencies. There are fifteen (15) CDF committee members and a project manager in all the constituencies in Kenya according to the CDF act 2003. This was the target population for the study. The researcher used questionnaires as the main instrument of collecting data. The data analysis was done using SPSS version 17 computer package which analyzed all the views on the factors posed to respondents on budgetary practices. Data was presented in tables, percentages, frequencies, bar graphs and pie charts. From the study, the researcher found out that activity based budgeting was preferred by many constituencies while a few practiced a combination of activity based and zero based budgeting. The preferred budgeting practice was attributed by the fact that funds are allocated by the CDF board according to the activities of every project and maximum ceiling must be observed. The respondents cited some challenges to the budgetary preparation as lack of enough time for budgeting, lack of clear budgeting policies to budget the funds, lack of enough trained personnel on financial management and lack of access of CDF information for all and lack of budget committees. This could be addressed if these factors were put in place in order to enable proper utilization of CDF resources in Kenya for the common benefit of the local citizens.