Social Audit and Performance of National Government Constituency Development Fund Projects in Mandera County, Kenya

Abstract

Theprojects funded using National Government Constituency Developed Fund in Kenya faces, time and cost overruns as well as quality issueswhich promptedthis study to investigate the extent to which social audithas been conducted among government funded projects, and its effect on the performancetaking a case of Mandera county. A descriptive approach wastaken and the data was collectedthrough semi-structured questionnaire. The study targeted 88 respondents who comprised of National Government Constituency Developed Fundcommittee members, wards representatives, heads of departments such as education, works, water, health, finance and audit in the sub county as well as the beneficiaries of the projects. The data analysis procedure wasthematic, descriptive and inferential statistics. In this case, mean, standard deviationand regressions wereused. The study found out that social accountability hada positive and significant effect on performance of NGCDF projects in Mandera county; participatory budgeting hada positive and significant effect on performance of NGCDF projects in Mandera county and community-based monitoring of NGCDF projects was also positively and significantly associated with the performance of NGCDF projects in Mandera county. This implies that an improvement in any of the three indicators would lead to a significant improvement in delivery of NGCDF projects in Mandera county in terms of scope and budget.The study recommends the project steering committee and the NGCDF committee to promote social accountability in managing NGCDF projects in order to enhance efficiency and output. This can be done by availing of audit reports, termly development information, financial reports, development reports and information calling for public participation information to the public for ease of perusal and positive criticism.The study recommends the project steering committee and the NGCDF committee to promote participatory budgeting inNGCDF projects. This can be done by making arrangements to ensure that the stakeholders take part in coming up with projects of priorityin their areas, availing information calling for participatory budgeting, participatory resource allocation for identified projects, participatory project identification and availability of public forums to exchange useful information regarding costs of projects.The study also recommends the project steering committee and the NGCDF committee to promote community-based monitoring of NGCDF projects. This can be done by development of a framework for community-based monitoring of NG-CDF projects, joint NG-CDF projects impactassessments, joint NG-CDF projects reviews, joint NG-CDF projects monitoring and the use of information from M & E.