By JEFF OTIENO
Posted Tuesday, April 13 2010 at 13:02

The government has dismissed an audit by a lobby group detailing theft and misuse of Constituency Development Funds as misinformed and lacking in credibility.

In a statement prepared on its behalf by the Constituency Development Fund Board, which is tasked to administer the programme, the government questioned authenticity of the audit carried out on 17 constituencies saying several of the projects described as ‘ghost’ “were in reality a case of reallocations.”

“The projects were not implemented for various valid reasons that were communicated to the Constituency Development Fund Board and approval to spend the money on alternative projects was sought and granted in line with the CDF (Amendment) Act, 2007 section 9 (2)-(5), said the statement.
The audit, released by The National Taxpayers Association (NTA), revealed that taxpayers lost Sh445million through theft and mismanagement of the funds in the financial years 2006/07 and 2007/08.

It also reported that Sh78,898,544, money allocated to five local authorities as Local Authority Transfer Funds in the financial year 2007/08, could not be accounted for.
The lobby group reportedly used both primary and secondary methods of data collection in exposing the misuse of taxpayers’ money in funding ghost projects or poor conceptualised and designed ones.

Some of the constituencies mentioned as having misused the funds were: Embakasi, Makadara, Kamukunji, Mathira, Bondo, Gem and Amagoro among others.

However, in defence of the programme the board said the Fund Account Managers, who were its employees, had confirmed that the projects described as ‘ghosts’ do exist.

“CDF construction projects is supervised by officers from ministries of Public Works and Roads and the contractors’ retention fees is not released until the contractors have satisfied relevant contractual obligations,” the statement by the CDF board said.

Other cases cited by the NTA, the board said, the project management committees concerned had received funds but were yet to undertake procurements and other pre-implementation requirements.

However, it conceded that there were challenges that had prevented the programme from attaining greater success in bringing development to the people, adding it was reason why a taskforce was appointed to look into the loopholes and administrative difficulties. The report is expected to be made public in July, this year.

Despite the problems, the board said CDF had been a success story with more than 35,000 projects established in various parts of the provinces.

“The impact of these projects is already being felt especially in the key sectors funded by CDF such as education with about 38 percent of the allocations, health (11 percent) and water (eight percent).

The programme has so far received a total of Sh56,673,300,000 for the 210 constituencies since its inception in 2003. In the current financial year, the programme was allocated Sh12.33 billion.

Though the board welcomed audits by lobby groups on the use of the fund it urged them to first verify the information with its officers.

Source