Kimemia pointed out that low absorption affects Kenyans as it denies them the opportunity to get development projects and challenged the PSs and Accounting Officers not to heap blame on cancelled funding by development partners, but assess why their ministries cannot utilize all the funds allocated to them.
“We don’t need to blame donors, we need to ask ourselves why we can’t spent 100 per cent of government funding,” said added Kimemia.
Need for training
He proposed training of programme managers to ensure funds are used and called for harmonisation of Government procurement systems. Ministries with the worst rate of absorption of recurrent expenditure include the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Local Government, then under Sabatia MP Musalia Mudavadi, which spent a paltry 5.1 per of its allocation. It was allocated Sh18.3 billion, but only spent Sh930.4 million.
The Ministry of State for Public Service follows with 14.9 per cent of its allocation spent absorbing Sh760 million of its allocated Sh5 billion. The defunct Interim Independent Electoral Commission (IIEC) had Sh1.8 billion of its allocated Sh11.4 billion, representing 16.3 per cent absorption rate.
Ministry of Housing is next with Sh570 million of its Sh1.6 billion spent (33.9 per cent) while Ministry of Water spent Sh2.6 billion of its allocation of Sh5.9 billion (43.4 per cent absorption).
Good spending
The Ministry of Tourism ranked first in the absorption of its development budget at 92.3 per cent followed by the Ministry of National Heritage (87.1 percent), State Law Office (81.5 per cent), Planning (80.7 per cent) and Industrialisation (75.7 per cent).
Tourism, Trade and Industry sectors had the highest rate of absorption of 75.2 per cent.
On the other hand, Ministry of State for Special Programmes topped those praised for high absorption rate of recurrent expenditure. Out of Sh7.3 billion, the ministry spent Sh7.9 billion, representing 93.2 per cent absorption rate.
Ministry Foreign Affairs spent Sh7.4 billion of its allocation of Sh8 billion (92.5 per cent) while the Ministry of State for Defence had Sh43.3 billion of Sh52billion spent (83.4 per cent) while Ministry of East African Community spent Sh847 million of its allocation of Sh1 billion (82.7 per cent).
Teachers Service Commission closes the five best spending 79 per cent of its Sh105 billion allocation with Sh83.6 billion. The total budget for the financial year 2011/2012 was Sh1,158.9 billion, with recurrent budget of Sh552.8 billion and Development budget of Sh396.5 billion.
