MP wants every constituency’s share of budget made public

Suba South MP Caroli Omondi has proposed sweeping amendments to Kenya’s public finance laws aimed at increasing transparency in national budgeting and tightening accountability in county spending.

Speaking during a radio interview, Caroli Omondi said he had already tabled proposed changes to the Public Finance Management (PFM) Act, with the amendment having cleared parliamentary committees and currently undergoing public participation.

The legislator said the proposed reforms are intended to make it easier for Members of Parliament and the public to track how development resources are distributed across constituencies.

Under the proposed amendment, Omondi said the government would be required to provide constituency-level summaries of development expenditure at three key stages of the budget-making process, within the Parliamentary Budget Office, the National Treasury, and the final published budget estimates.

“If you are telling us we have given the water sector Sh200 billion, you must break it down to constituencies,” he said during the interview. 

According to the MP, the current budget structure is too broad and difficult for many legislators and ordinary citizens to interpret, limiting effective oversight and public scrutiny.

He argued that breaking down allocations by constituency and sector would promote fairness and transparency as envisioned under the Constitution.

“Our Constitution is very clear on equity, transparency and free access to information. We have not been following that,” Omondi said, adding that the reforms are intended to operationalise constitutional principles under Articles 10 and 223 on governance and public service values.

The MP explained that the proposed summaries would show how development funds are distributed across sectors such as roads, water and health, enabling constituencies to identify areas where they have benefited or been left behind.

“This summary will clearly show the basket of resources available, the projects planned and how they have been distributed,” he said. “That way, everybody can see whether they have been catered for fairly.”

Omondi also revealed that he is working on a separate proposal aimed at safeguarding devolution and ensuring counties spend more money on development projects rather than recurrent expenditure.

The proposal would require counties to dedicate at least 70 per cent of shareable revenue to development expenditure, leaving only 30 per cent for recurrent costs.

The Suba South MP criticised counties for receiving billions of shillings annually yet failing to deliver tangible projects, despite exhausting their allocations.

“Today a county gets Sh11 billion, but the Auditor General later tells us there was zero expenditure on development, yet all the money has been spent,” he said.

To address the problem, Omondi said counties should adopt a project-based funding model similar to the National Government Constituencies Development Fund (NG-CDF), where funds are tied directly to specific approved projects.

Under the proposed system, counties would be required to submit budgets and project plans in advance, with each project assigned a code before funds are released.

“The money should leave Nairobi already tied to a project,” he said, citing the NG-CDF model where funds allocated for projects such as classroom construction are transferred through dedicated project accounts managed locally.

Omondi argued that such a system would reduce misuse of funds, eliminate pending bills and strengthen accountability in devolved units.

He added that project costing should continue to be handled by technical government agencies such as the Ministry of Public Works rather than politicians or local administrators.