Reforms in the land sector can only be achieved if the new government allocates adequate resources towards the land policy and planning programmes, writes DANN OKOTH
With the two main coalitions Jubilee and Cord having pledged far-reaching reforms in the lands sector in their manifestos, the new administration is under pressure to show commitment in reforming the sector by injecting substantial funds through the national budget.
The strategic objective of the land policy and planning programme is to improve the livelihoods of Kenyans.
According to a new analysis by the Economic and Social Rights Centre (ESRC), tasks under this programme such as settling of the landless, issuance of title deeds and solving disputes can only be performed by the National Land Commission (NLC). ESRC, however, contends that if the commission is not well funded, it will be difficult to realise these objectives.
Views from stakeholders in the sector also show that unless addressed adequately, budgetary discrepancies for the land sector, over the years, could deal a death blow to envisaged land reforms and come back to haunt the new government.
Provisional figures provided by the Budget Policy Statement 2013 indicate that the total budget for 2013/14 will stand at Sh1.3 trillion, which translates to 29 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product.
The provisional figures further indicate that development and recurrent expenditure will stand at Sh880.8 billion and Sh389.2 billion respectively.
The Agriculture and Rural Development (ARD) has been allocated a provisional budgetary ceiling of Sh54.415 billion out of which 7.9 per cent (about Sh4.4 billion) will go towards the Land Policy and Planning Programme. This represents a reduction of about Sh505 million if the Budget Policy Statement provisional budget figures are maintained in yet to be released books for 2013/14 in early April 2013.
Funding gaps
The ESRC brief seeks to investigate whether in view of the reforms envisaged under the Constitution, National Land Policy and new legislation, any deliberate efforts were being made to deploy resources for the new land institutions and whether allocated resources to the Ministry of Lands were being utilised efficiently and effectively.
The brief says there are glaring and systemic funding gaps to the lands sector and inefficiency in line ministries and departments that have led to stagnation of reform and development.
“What we have found is that there has been little change in how the Government has managed funds with little evidence of consistent and transparent planning or budgeting for land reforms,” says Eric Kanyi a programme officer in charge of Policy and Research at ESRC who co-authored the report.
“This is quite worrying and is a matter that should be of grave concern to Kenyans. We are moving into the phase of serious implementation and unless adequate funding is made available for land reforms it will be another lost opportunity,” he added.
According to the Agriculture and Rural Development (ARD) sector report for 2012, the sector requested Sh117.88 billion, but a budget of Sh52.11 billion was approved by Parliament. According the report, this is evidence that there is a huge variation between the amount requested and amount allocated to the sector.
The sectors that received huge budget allocations were energy, infrastructure and ICT and education, with each receiving 23 per cent of the total budget for 2012/13.
“This portrays a disconnect between the ARD sector report and budget policy statement, yet the sector reviews and hearings form the basis upon which the budget policy statement is prepared,” says Kanyi.
In the 2012/13 budget, the amount budgeted for land had changed by more than Sh800 million between the budget policy statement and the financial year’s estimates even though these two documents were tabled in Parliament in the last half of April. However, Kanyi notes that a similar scenario can be observed across all sectors.
“Such scenarios might basically lead to an incremental system of budgeting instead of programme-based budgeting, which the Government is trying to actualise,” he says.
He adds: “A strong connection between sector reviews, sector public hearings, budget policy statement and the final approved budget would reduce the observed variations, hence making the budget more practicable and certain.”
But besides the issue of allocation, the analysis also finds under-expenditure, wastage and misallocation of resources in lands sector. The latest auditor’s report shows that the under-expenditure in the Ministry of Lands stood at ten per cent of the total budget allocated to the ministry in 2010/11, while the total pending bills for the same financial year stood at Sh8.1 billion of which Sh34 million came from the Ministry of Lands.
The ministry had a pending bill of Sh13 million from the recurrent vote and Sh21 million from the development vote, which is ironical since the ministry had pending bills and, at the same time, there was under-expenditure.
Unsupported expenditure
The Ministry of Lands had unsupported expenditure totaling Sh10 million in 2010/11. However, how these amounts were spent cannot be ascertained since there were no receipts or documentation explaining their use.
The ministry has also exhibited inadequate control in management of imprest. In the 2010/11 budget, the ministry had Sh5 million worth of imprest, which had not been declared by the officers responsible.
The issue, the ESRC report notes, is made even more complex by the fact that officers received additional imprest yet they had not accounted for the previous one.
“It is important to note that these issues have dominated the auditor’s report every year, meaning that this trend has been persistent. It is high time the officers in the Ministry of Lands take necessary measures to ensure effectiveness and efficiency in the use of public finance.
“It is also of concern that the auditor’s report is not released on time and hence, is of little use, especially for the public. For instance, currently we have the audit report for 2010/11, yet we are almost coming to the end of the 2012/13 financial year.
“The law requires that the audit reports are made available six months after the end of every financial year. Going by this, the audit report for 2011/12 ought to have been released,” Kanyi says.
The budget Implementation Review Report for 2011/12 indicates that by the end of the fourth quarter of 2011/12 financial year, the Ministry of Lands had used 89.3 per cent of its recurrent budget — an indication that the ministry did not absorb all its recurrent expenditure for the 2011/12 financial year.
Also, out of the total recurrent budgetary allocation for the ministry, the exchequer issues stood at 96.2 per cent — meaning the ministry was not given the total money allocated in the 2011/12 recurrent budget.
The ESRC analysis observes that the ministry is faced with a number of challenges, including persistent existence of pending bills, under-expenditure, unsupported expenditure and lack of effective control of imprest.
It notes that despite the establishment of the National Land Commission, the Ministry of Lands budget is not projected to increase in the coming financial years, thus creating doubt whether the National Land Commission will be adequately funded.
Other players in the sector feel the government needs to gradually increase budgetary allocation to the lands sector to sufficiently fund reforms in the sector.
“The government needs to increase the lands budget to ten per cent in the next budget and gradually to 15 per cent by 2015, if meaningful reforms are to be achieved in the sector,” says Father Gabriel Dolan of the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission.
“The poor budget formulation and inefficiencies in the ministry also need to be addressed urgently to avoid waste of public resources and fast-track reform and development processes in the sector,” he adds.
He notes that the Government has, over the years, managed the land sector poorly as evidenced in lack of consistent, clear and transparent planning and budgeting for land reforms.
