Factors influencing effective financial management systems in government sector- A case of Kitui central ministerial departments in Kenya

Abstract

Public financial management includes all phases of the budget cycle, including the preparation of the budget, internal control and audit, procurement as well as monitoring and reporting arrangements. The broad objective of public financial management are to achieve overall fiscal discipline, allocation of resources to priority needs through efficient and effective allocation of public resources. The purpose of the study was to establish the factors that influence the effective financial management system in government sectors in Kenya. Relevant literature was reviewed especially in regard to the financial reporting system, the budget preparation and execution and the accounting policy that are adopted. The research design was a descriptive research design, which involved measurement, classification, analysis comparison and interpretation of data. The population of the study comprised thirty (30) ministerial departments with a total number of three hundred and one (301) officers. The researcher administered questionnaires to a sample of Ninety (90) respondents, of who Eighty Six (86) filled the questions and returned for analysis. Questionnaires were first edited, assigned numbers and coded .Both qualitative and quantitative statistics was used to analyze the data. The research has shown that 75.3% of the respondents felt that the public are not involved in the formulation of budgets as well as during the project proposals writing Also 66.7% of the respondents had the view that the public had no access to the financial reports of the Government fiscal management both in terms of expenditures and budgets. There was Based on the finding the researcher recommend that to overcome some of the challenges encountered, the legal framework should be accompanied by clear financial regulation and accounting instructions, improvement of public access to fiscal information and adoption of accrual system of accounting to conform to the International Public Sector Accounting Standards. The researcher further suggests that future research could be done on the training and capacity building needed to implement national programmes as well as comparison carried out on the effectiveness of the public financial management of other countries so as to enhance service delivery.