Today Tuesday 16 July, I read an article authored by Nyambega Gisesa on the Daily Nation Newspaper about how counties spent less than 50 percent of their budgets during the first 9 months according to the Office of Controller of Budget Reports.
Narok County was leading in absorption of funds at 66.9% while Wajir County was the worst in absorption at 32.9%.
This is not a unique problem for Kenya. It is a global challenge. According to data provided by Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA), governments all over the world are not able to spend their budgets and this is a danger to attainments of Sustainable Development Goals.
Basic services such as housing, water and sanitation will suffer according to a research by International Budget Partnership (2019).
On average, budgets for economic affairs remain mostly unspent while defense budgets exceed the budgets by many governments.
There is also a practice of many governments under-spending irrigation budgets.
Supplementary budgets
“Some deviations in planned budgets are inevitable, and when they happen, governments should explain why,” according to a report by Jason Lakin and Chloe Cho of IBP.
Read More: Kilifi County CIDP 2018-2022 background
2 thoughts on “Government under-expenditure of allocated budgets is a global problem”
Comments are closed.