Counties improve budget openness, but reports wanting - survey

An increasing number of counties have reported improvement in their budget transparency processes in the past year, according to a new survey.

Kenya’s County Budget Transparency Survey 2023 by the International Budget Partnership (IBP) Kenya shows that the average index in 2023 rose to 56 out of a possible 100 points, compared to 41 in the year 2022.

This is a 15-point improvement driven by counties making more budget documents publicly available and providing more comprehensive information.

However, despite the increase in transparency, IBP has raised concerns about the quality of reports being availed.

The report says that even as more counties publish supplementary budgets, the level of comprehensiveness remains wanting.

The 2022 report indicated that counties provided 48 out 100 points which is less than what was provided in the new report in 2023.

“It is crucial that this transparency is coupled with comprehensive and detailed information to ensure effective fiscal management in budget transparency. Counties pass supplementary budgets which may not be as a result of unforeseen or unavoidable circumstances which is contrary to the requirements of the law,” reads the report in part.

According to the ranking Kwale County scored 81 points and emerged as the most transparent devolved unit followed by Makueni (80 points), Bungoma (78 points), West Pokot (74.4 points) and Wajir (74.2 points) were the top five counties with the most transparent budgets.

Each of these counties made available all the 11 key budget documents assessed under the survey.

The transparency scores of the top five counties except for West Pokot, showed an improvement compared to the CBTS 2022

Population Reference Bureau budget facilitator from the coast regional hub, Reener Atuma, said that in the report 38 counties provided more budget information, registering an increase in their overall transparency index.

Despite the improvement, when compared to 2022, about 141 (27 per cent) of the 517 key budget documents were still not publicly available.

“None of Kenya’s 47 counties made all their key budget documents on time. While 32 counties availed at least one document, 15 counties did not have a single budget document available on time,” said Atuma.

One of the counties that embraced publishing key budget documents on time is Lamu, which published eight of the eleven key budget documents.

Another county is Taita Taveta county which published six out of eleven key budget documents.

According to the report, the overall improvement in budget transparency is spread across the country, as new counties occupy new positions in the budget transparency index. In CBTS 2023, 22 out of 47 counties scored above 60 out of 100 points in the CBTS 2023.

While some counties have made consistent gains over the last four rounds of the survey, counties such as Wajir, Kajiado and Nyamira made impressive gains in CBTS 2023 by scoring 74, 73 and 70 out of 100 points, respectively.

On the other hand, some counties regressed and significantly dropped on their transparency index.

These include Kisii (-18 points), Garissa (-16 points) and Mandera (-13 points).

The CBTS 2023 survey shows the transparency index scores range from 20 out of 100 points in Trans Nzoia to 81 out of 100 points in Kwale County.

Between 2020 and 2023, the average transparency score has increased by 23 points.

Notably, the degree by which counties have improved the transparency of their budgets each year has also been increasing, with the yearly increase in the average score rising from two points between 2020 and 2021 to 15 points between 2022 and 2023.

Atuma added that, if the timeliness of key budget documents was incorporated into overall budget transparency, the level of budget transparency would further drop.

“The survey indicates that counties published more budget documents after the period for timeliness survey, indicating that they do prepare the documents but rarely adhere to the legal requirements of publishing documents on time,” she said.

Only 15 per cent of required key county budget documents were made publicly available on time, with 39 per cent of the total documents falling in the implementation stage.

County Budget Review and Outlook Papers were among the timeliest budget documents, published by 32 per cent of counties.

However, quarterly budget implementation reports were the least published with only four per cent of counties making 1st, 2nd and 3rd quarterly budget implementation reports on time.

The County Integrated Development Plans, on the other hand, were the most published with 16 counties making them publicly available on time.