Kilifi County fails to spend Sh220m climate funds, audit reveals

A resident watches the Awach Water Project, jointly funded by the national and Kisumu County governments under the FLLoCA programme. [File, Standard] Kilifi County has not yet started using the Sh219,991,221 million allocated under the Financing Locally-Led Climate Action (FLLoCA) programme, two years after receiving the funds. FLLoCA is a government programme aimed at strengthening climate resilience at the local level, particularly in rural communities. It focuses on empowering the 47 county governments and communities to plan, implement, and monitor climate-related projects. The programme is a joint effort with the World Bank and other donors and is implemented by the National Treasury through a Programme Implementation Unit (PIU) and County Governments. In the financial year 2023-2024, 46 counties, apart from Nairobi and Mombasa, received millions totalling Sh10.51 billion from the World Bank's International Development Association (IDA). Other sources were KfW, a German state-owned development bank, and County Contribution through counties setting aside at least 1.5 per cent of their development budget to the County Climate Change Fund (CCCF). The audit also found that some projects' costs have been exaggerated and are not worth the amount indicated as used, a lack of community engagement, and materials for projects were under-delivered, among other discrepancies. This was revealed on Friday during a three-day training of media on climate change advocacy sponsored by the National Treasury at Maanzoni Lodge in Machakos County. Also present were faith-based organisations (FBOs), Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), and Indigenous Peoples Organisations (IPOs). The finding came from a pilot social audit report done in March this year in four counties of Busia, Kilifi, Makueni, and Nyandarua. According to Pauline Saris, Busia County Vocal Point for FLLoCA and member of the steering committee of the (FLLoCA) programme, the social audit that cost Sh561,000, among others, sought to know the usage of FLLoCA. Vocal Point refers to a designated individual or contact person responsible for managing grievances and complaints within the FLLoCA programme. Busia County in 2023-2024 received Sh217 million, while Nyandarua received Sh136.5 million and Makueni Sh197.2 million. The counties are waiting for another batch of funding for the financial year 2024-2025. "In Kilifi, all projects are indicated as ongoing and monies disbursed, but there are no actual projects on the ground," said the report presented by Ms Saris. According to Robert Banda, a Kilifi County Vocal Point, there has been a misunderstanding between the then chief officer and the Chief Executive Member for Environment, Climate Change and Forestry, thus denying the residents to benefit of the money through projects. "If you look at the many projects in the county, they were written as ongoing, yet if you go to the ground, there are no such projects. It is only three weeks ago, the first contractor was given a tender to construct a borehole in Rabai Constituency, yet there were 12 projects identified that are supposed to be ongoing," said Banda. He said they have written a grievance letter and petition to the County Governor Gideon Mung'aro and are waiting for him to call them and highlight such issue. Banda, an advocate and who also works with Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) as a national volunteer, added that the County has no planning, executive, and implementation committees and wonders how they identify the contractors and how they managed to agree to start the borehole project. He suspects the Minister in charge of the environment has no knowledge of FLLoCA and asks the National Treasury to recall the money until it puts its house in order first. Normally, if the county fails to utilise the money or misuses it, the National Treasury can recall it, and the County will not receive the money in the next financial year. Saris said the money is a loan from the World Bank, which needs to be paid back, and therefore, prudence in its usage is key. "We should all understand that FLLoCA is not a grant but a loan that we as taxpayers will pay back. It will be good to pay back, knowing how it was used well to benefit us. As it goes now, we shall pay back, not knowing how it was used. We urge counties to treat FLLoCA as a loan, use the money prudently, and seal all loopholes of misuse of the money," she said. On the exaggeration of project costs, the audit found out that in Busia County, a lightning arrester was installed at a cost of Sh2.4 million, which the community felt was an exaggerated costing. While on under-delivery of materials for projects, in Busia and Makueni, the community felt some contractors have under-delivered (items delivered less than what is indicated in the "Bill of Quantities (BQs)). "We also discovered that the contractors who delivered the materials were from different wards or neighbouring counties instead of the same ward and county, thus negating the meaning of 'locally-led'," said Saris. For Busia and Nyandarua, it was found out that Grievance Redress Mechanism (GRM) structures exist but are underutilised due to limited awareness, unclear documentation, and delays in resolution. "Many grievances are addressed informally, reducing transparency and accountability," it said. On progress for projects in the other three, Saris said they have implemented the projects, but are at different levels of completion. "You'll find that some counties, there are counties that are at 90 per cent or 70 per cent complete, others are at 40 per cent complete. In others, we have some that are almost complete, and there are those that have not even started," she said. On community engagement and impact, the involvement of the community as the "locally-led" words in the definition of FLLoCA scored poorly. In Busia, for instance, the social audit report says the community indicated dissatisfaction with the level of engagement since they were not involved in project design and implementation. For Kilifi and Busia, projects were done on private land, and there was no clarification on how communities will continually access these projects. The lack of involvement of the community came out well in Nyandarua, where the Lake Olbolossat project on water harvesting. The community appreciates the water tanks, but if they were consulted, according to the feedback, they would have preferred a borehole. Busia County conducts open tenders, which block community groups from benefiting because they are not Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS)-compliant On misuse of FLoCCA funds, Dr Dan Adino, Social Safeguard Specialist at FLoCCA, regretted that it's happening despite there being oversight bodies like the Office of the Auditor General (OAG), Public Finance Management Department, Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC), and Director of Criminal Investigations (DCI), among others. "So we have the Public Finance Management Department, Office of the Auditor General, which normally goes to the office of the County of Paris, the EACC, and DCI. We have everything on the side of the government, but the misuse is still happening," said Dr Adino. He added: "So all the systems, measures are in place. We don't need additional measures from the government to curb the misuse of funds. What we now need is just finance for the good people, we just need to work with FBOs, CSOs to make sure that our resources are well-spent." On the way forward, the audit recommends, among others, the need for additional funding support so as to extend the social audit approach to other counties through Civil Society Organisations (CSO) networks.

Kilifi County fails to spend Sh220m climate funds, audit reveals

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