{"id":11735,"date":"2024-03-11T12:05:13","date_gmt":"2024-03-11T12:05:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/index.php\/2024\/03\/11\/budget-cuts-delayed-funds-negatively-affecting-infrastructure-projects-pac\/"},"modified":"2024-03-11T12:05:13","modified_gmt":"2024-03-11T12:05:13","slug":"budget-cuts-delayed-funds-negatively-affecting-infrastructure-projects-pac","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/budget-cuts-delayed-funds-negatively-affecting-infrastructure-projects-pac\/","title":{"rendered":"Budget cuts, delayed funds negatively affecting infrastructure projects \u2013 PAC"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>NAIROBI, Kenya, Mar 11 \u2013 A report by the Parliamentary watchdog Committee has cited contractor non-performance, delayed exchequer releases, budget cuts, and inadequate project management as factors plaguing infrastructure projects in the country.<br \/><\/strong>\u00a0<br \/>These factors, the report by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), says has led to the stagnation of projects and accumulation of significant pending bills amounting to billions of shillings owed to various contractors and suppliers by the National Government.<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>According to the report by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), during the Financial Year 2020\/2021, Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) faced budgetary under-performance primarily due to delayed exchequer releases, supplementary budget cuts, or the inability to collect Appropriation-in-Aid.<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>\u201cThis invariably led to under-performance of programme objectives and lack of service provision to the public,\u201d said Nominated MP Hon. John Mbadi, who chairs the committee as he moved the report for debate in the House.<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>\u201cOn budget cuts, this House stands indicted because we allow too many supplementary budgets, which distort and disrupt the budget implementation process hence resulting in audit queries,\u201d he added.<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>Notably, as of December 31, 2023, the State Department for Roads had pending bills totaling Ksh162 billion, despite certified works amounting to Ksh650 billion.<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>Mbadi expressed concern with the ballooning pending bill owed to contractors and suppliers by the State department roads, it will take up to a minimum of four to five years to settled the debt as the annual allocation for the state department is roughly Ksh40 billion to Ksh50 billion.<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>He urged the political class to stop politicking and acknowledge the country\u2019s ballooning pending bill and take radical steps to address the situation.<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>Mbadi urged a halt to new road construction projects, emphasizing the need to complete ongoing projects to maximize the value of the funds invested.<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>\u201cWe should stop any new constructions of roads and continue to complete ongoing roads so that there would be value for the money spent and pumped into those roads. It is about time this House bit the bullet, I have said it before and I say it again: Let us take radical steps,\u201d he held.<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>Despite ongoing efforts to compile a list of stalled projects, Mbadi disclosed that his committee would provide information on the interest charged on delayed payments and incomplete projects in the final report.<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>The committee recommended that the National Treasury only approve projects with guaranteed funding and completion within the medium-term economic framework.<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>Mbadi emphasized that no new projects should commence until existing ones are completed or fully funded.<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>\u00a0\u201cAccounting officers are further warned of personal responsibility should contractors fail to perform, considering evaluation of technical and financial capacity of bidders is mandated under the procurement law,\u201d he said.<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>He however regretted that despite the procurement process requiring that bidders are evaluated on the basis of technical and financial capacity, you will still find contractors who are unable to discharge and complete projects, either for lack of technical capacity or financial inability to finance implementation or execution of the contract.<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>\u201cFailure to enforce and\/or recall performance guarantees will also be personally remedied by accounting officers,\u201d Mbadi held.<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>The committee also urged the National Treasury and the National Assembly to make realistic revenue projections and achievable expenditure estimates, starting with the 2024\/2025 Budget Estimates.<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>Mbadi emphasized the need to avoid over-budgeting, emphasizing that revenue projections should align with actual possibilities.<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>\u00a0\u201cThe reality is that we are over-budgeting as a country. We are budgeting for money that is on paper and that cannot be realized. We need to be realistic about our projections. Our Parliamentary Budget Office has always warned us every financial year that the revenue projections from the National Treasury are unrealistic. However, we continue and go ahead to approve them.<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>The Committee has also recommended that the National Treasury should only rationalize budgets that have not been committed.\u00a0\u00a0<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>According to Mbadi, when doing supplementary budgets,\u00a0 money that has not been committed rationalized but discouraged National Treasury and Parliament not go to departments and start slashing their budgets in the middle of the year or towards the close of a financial year.<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>He suggested uniform borrowing by the National Treasury throughout the year to prevent end-of-year rushes in disbursements and procurements.<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>He also asked the Government National to stop borrows a lot of money at the end of the financial year to avoid MDAs crossing over the year with pending bills.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NAIROBI, Kenya, Mar 11 \u2013 A report by the Parliamentary watchdog Committee has cited contractor non-performance, delayed exchequer releases, budget cuts, and inadequate project management as factors plaguing infrastructure projects in the country.\u00a0These factors, the report by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), says has led to the stagnation of projects and accumulation of significant pending [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11735\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}