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The Beauty and Shame of Kenya's Constituency Development Fund - CDF

[ Posted On: 2006-11-13 ]

In that hall in Banjul on that humid June 30, 2006, I was a very proud Kenyan, not because I was finally converted to the doctrine of Najivunia Kenya.

I was proud because I sat there, watched and listened to Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, Olusegun Obassanjo of Nigeria and scores of other African leaders pour praise on Kenya.

They were not heaping praises on Kenya because our country had sent any body to the moon or had become the first African country to possess nuclear power. They talked fondly of Kenya for having brought to the attention of the continent that two simple things could be achieved by Africans themselves if there was the will to do so.

They cited Kenya's National Budget that was funded 95% from domestic resources, something most African countries could not believe was possible in a continent that was still boasting the highest number of the poorest nations on earth not to mention the fact that horrid pictures of poverty and death through starvation had become synonymous with the image of Africa.

Their disbelief was justified when you recalled that most of the states in Africa were permanent begging entities of the World Bank and IMF.

This was the one lesson that Africa was anxious to learn from Kenya.

How had Kenya managed to wriggle its way out of the clutches of international money lenders when many African nations were still trapped in this manhole?

The other first for Kenya was the innovative Constituency Development Fund, the scheme that the Kenya government had conceived just three years earlier and had used to push $ 100 million into the rural areas for its constituency based rural development projects. African leaders thought it was the most effective way of equitably distributing national resources throughout the country from the treasury to without any biases.

In Kenya, constituencies themselves, under the chairmanship of their elected Members of Parliament would manage the funds for the benefit of their respective electorate. Through this process, the central government had overnight shifted the onus of regional development to the locals themselves.

Unlike the CDF, Kenya's self reliance on its domestic resources did not come about out of choice.

It was a painful process imposed on Kenya that started in early 1990s when relations with donors, led by the United States, the World Bank and IMF deteriorated beyond repair.

President Moi's governance record and gross economic mismanagement, high level corruption in government, coupled with his high handedness in dealing with his political opponents made him an unpopular African leader after the end of the Cold War.

For these reasons, funding from international lending and donor institutions were delayed, frozen or withdrawn. This led to difficulty in balancing Kenya's national budgets year in year out because traditionally Kenya had factored in donor funding in its national budget estimates.

Fifteen years later, Kenyan authorities had suffered long enough under the yoke of international money barons' punitive measures. Essential services almost ground to a halt. Infrastructure development programmes budgeted for with donor contributions stalled due to endless wrangles and differences with mainly the World Bank and IMF over general governance, human rights and democratization issues.

When President Kibaki assumed office after the 2002 General Elections, there was a short interlude of donor interest in Kenya in the hope that things would be done differently under the regime of the Moi era critics. However, this was not to be. The honeymoon hardly lasted a year.

With the rise and rise of Anglo Leasing scam within the ranks of the Kibaki regime that saw the fall and fall of his administration stalwarts, relations with Western donors reached an all time low at least for direct government support.

Three years into his administration, the Kibaki government had achieved one feat.

It had trebled tax revenue in the country. More importantly, the behavior of donors with their unreliable moods and promises in his first year in power made him reduce drastically donor expectations into his budget in year two. By the time the year three budget was read, donors were allocated a paltry 5% which even if they didn't honor, would not adversely affect government operations and development plans.

The experience with our CDF, the most innovative idea in the Kibaki administration has been disheartening to say the least. However, when you come to think of it, the main reason why MPs overwhelmingly supported its bill in parliament way back in 2003 was not because they loved their constituents more and hated themselves less. It was sheer selfishness and self preservation that made them support the bill. They supported it because they dreaded another five years of endless harambees for endless development projects in their constituencies as they had falsely promised their electorate. Harambees had become sitting MPs' endless nightmare. It made and unmade them every five years as the culture of wealth, greed and graft took its toll on Kenya.

So the idea of having the government directly fund development projects in every constituency to the tune of Ks 20 million a year with the sitting MP as the overall boss of the fund was music to their ears. The motion sailed in parliament with lightening speed.

More importantly, short of differences that emerged within the ruling coalition soon after Kibaki formed his first cabinet, the 9th Parliament almost outlawed harambees of any kind, an indication of how much they loathed Kenya's oldest rallying slogan that came about during the colonial struggle.

Perhaps the beauty of the CDF has been lost in the shameless management structure that the Act put in place at its inception. The Act was ill- conceived when it gave sitting MPs the power and glory to mismanage it.

I say mismanage because gory tales coming out of nearly 70% of all constituencies attest to gross mismanagement, theft, fraud and sheer shameless misuse and misappropriation of this public fund.

Some MPs, knowing the level of ignorance, poverty and helplessness in their constituencies have for all practical purposes made their cronies believe that this constituency fund is their money given to them by the government to use as they see fit. In the end, these MPs have formed all sorts of companies using their cronies, relatives, friends, wives and even girl-friends to defraud the public of this fund.

Today, it is normal to hear that some of these funds are building lodges, brothels and night clubs in neighboring Southern Sudan. Harambees called by ordinary people have seen some sitting local MPs writing personal cheques as their contributions only to swap them with CDF cheques -- a clear theft of public funds to gain popularity with the electorate.

More painfully, myopic and visionless MPs have sought to punish clans perceived to be opposed to their leadership. Such clans have been ostracized by the MPs and punished for their lack of support in the last elections. As such they have been excluded from all development projects as punishment for their political leanings. Schools, roads, health centers, bursary funds and any form of funding from the government have been diverted to clans more amenable to the sitting MP.

The saga of CDF does not end there. In other constituencies, area MPs are so incompetent that to date, four years later, they have not managed to secure the release of funds from the treasury due to their inability to identify viable projects and write business proposals for funds to be released!

Sad to say but it is difficult to believe that in this day and age, Kenyans from any part of the country can still elect a Member of Parliament who cannot write a proposal for CDF projects in his constituency.

As Africa waits to emulate Kenya's CDF initiative in the continent, here we are busy soiling it with our endless greed and selfishness!

Article Source: http://www.afroarticles.com/article-dashboard

Jerry Okungu is a freelance political analyst based in Nairobi, Kenya. Jerry also serves as a Board Director at The Kenya Broadcasting Corporation. Jerry has written extensively on issues affecting Kenya and the rest of Africa over the years. Other articles written by Jerry Okungu are available at this location

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