Tourism Ministry spends cash well - Capital Business
Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

Kenya

Tourism Ministry spends cash well

NAIROBI, Kenya, May 31 – The Ministry of Tourism has been touted as the best utiliser of the development budget, according to the latest Budget Implementation Review Report.

The third quarter budget implementation report revealed that the ministry used 92.3 percent of its Gross Estimates for the 2011/2012 Financial Year.

The Ministry of National Heritage and Culture was second with 87.1 percent, followed by the State Law Office with 81.5 percent, the Ministry of Planning with 80.7 percent and the Ministry of Industrialisation with 75.7 percent.

“In the first half of the financial year, the Office of the Controller of Budget noted with concern from the analysis of the expenditure, that some of the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) had partially absorbed the available resources, which is still a major concern in the period under review,” read a section of the report.

The report added that the absorption rate of the development budget has been quite low for most MDAs thus resulting in non-provision of goods and services to the public.

The slow uptake of donor funds has been due to the procurement processes, governance and accountability issues, lack of adequate capacity for project management and delays in obtaining no objections to facilitate the absorption of the funds.

However, the implementation of the budget was partly affected by the austerity measures introduced by the Treasury to contain financing constraints due to revenue shortfall.

“The stoppage of procurement of some budgeted activities adversely affected the budget implementation of some MDAs during the third quarter,” noted the report.

In addition, the shortfall in revenue collection and delay in release of donor funds has impacted negatively on budget implementation.

Donor releases have been slow and stood at Sh58.6 billion against a target of Sh183.1 billion for the Financial Year.

Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.

As a long term measure, it is recommended that the government comes up with appropriate mechanisms to enhance revenue collections, institutionalise fiscal discipline and address issues affecting disbursement of donor funds in order to improve budget implementation.

Advertisement

More on Capital Business