Influence of stakeholders participation in the Budgetary process on the implementation of Government funded projects: the case of Isiolo County, Kenya

Abstract

Kenya has now devolved and changes have been introduced by the Constitution in the budget making process especially at the county level. The Constitution and subsequent legislation, such as the County Governments Act and the Public Finance Management Act, require public participation in matters of public finance. While there are numerous references to public participation in these laws, most are vague and contain no further guidance. As a result, two years into the devolved system of government, most counties in Kenya are yet to develop any specific strategies to ensure that all stakeholders are involved in all stages of the budget cycle leading to wastage and embezzlement of public resources. Stakeholder participation in the budget process has been argued to make government decisions more democratic and decisions made are more likely to represent the will of the people. The purpose of this study is to establish the influence of stakeholder participation in the budget process on the implementation of projects using Isiolo County as the case study. The study was guided by the following objectives: To determine how individual citizen participation in the budget process influences the implementation of projects; To establish the extent to which civil society organizations’ participation in the budget process influences the implementation of projects; To assess how community group participation on the budget process influences the implementation of projects and to evaluate how the participation of funding agencies and donors in the budget process influences the implementation of projects. Descriptive survey design was used for the study. The target population was stakeholders drawn from individual citizens, civil society organizations, community groups and funding agencies in Isiolo County. The sample size was total of 579 respondents sampled from each of the four stratums using Krejcie and Morgan table. Questionnaires and interview schedules were used as instruments of data collection. Data was analyzed through the use of a computer software SPSS. Primary data from the field was edited first then coding was done to translate question responses into specific categories. Quantitative data collected was analyzed by descriptive statistics while content analysis techniques were used to analyze qualitative data. Descriptive statistics such as, frequencies and percentages were used to describe the data. The analyzed data was presented in form of tables. The results revealed that citizens did not have knowledge about the county budgeting process although a sizeable number attended county budget forums. The study also revealed that stakeholder participation (citizens, CSOs, community groups and donor/funding agencies) is not being incorporated in the county budget process. The study concludes that there is lack of stakeholder participation both in the county budget process as well as in the implementation of projects and therefore recommends that the government should come up with ways of promoting citizen participation in the counties