Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi (right) and Economic Planning Principal Secretary Bonface Makokha during the launch of the Economic Survey 2025 at KICC, Nairobi, on May 6, 2025.
The National Treasury is plotting a Bill that, if passed into law, will block duplication of public-funded projects and clarify stakeholder roles in a move aimed at cutting the wastage that has birthed dozens of white elephant projects.
In an interview with the Nation, Economic Planning Principal Secretary in the National Treasury Bonface Makokha said that the Economic Planning Policy, which is intended to guide how national and county governments spend taxpayer funds on development projects, will be forged into a Bill.
The Economic Planning Policy is intended to act as a guideline for spending on development projects, by stopping both levels of government from starting new projects if there is already a similar one intended to serve the same purpose.
The document is also intended to clarify how roles will be shared in the event a development project cuts across more than one State agency.
Dr Makokha, the PS for Economic Planning, said in the interview that the Treasury will be framing a Bill from the same policy document, in a bid to cut wastage of funds and ensure development projects do not stall midway.
The plan, Dr Makokha added, is to herald better integration of the county and national government in matters of policy, planning, and budgeting of programmes and projects to ensure efficiency in the utilisation of resources by introducing the “planning-as-one” model.
Further, it will strengthen the role of monitoring and evaluation, which are essential in achieving the targets set in development plans.
“We are putting together a legal framework that will guide what should be done, how it should be done and when it should be done. You will not go outside that. That law is going to solve the problem of white elephants,” said Dr Makokha added.
The National Treasury office building.
For instance, Kenya allocated at least Sh1 trillion to Big Four Agenda enablers from 2018 to the financial year ending June 30, 2022.
However, the successes of the projects have been few and far between with the country facing a mounting crisis of stalled and delayed public projects.
From incomplete roads, stadiums, dams to abandoned hospitals, these unfinished initiatives represent wasted taxpayer money, and missed opportunities for development.
A report submitted to Parliament in 2024 by the National Treasury revealed that at least 442 development projects across 14 State departments valued at Sh662.9 billion had stalled.
The stalled and abandoned projects include markets, dams, airstrips and irrigation schemes, among others, had gobbled up more than Sh124 billion of taxpayers’ money with some dating back to 2006.
The report by Treasury Principal Secretary Chris Kiptoo indicated that the projects would require some Sh662.9 billion to complete.
But another report by the Parliamentary Budget Office on the 2024 budget policy statement made the issue even more alarming.
According to the report, the government needed more than Sh4.2 trillion to complete over 4,500 projects that had been rolled out, with some dating back to pre-2010.
The issue is not isolated to the national government but counties are also grappling with the menace with hundreds of development projects across devolved units grinding to a halt, with billions of shillings remaining tied up in incomplete works.
Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi (right) and Economic Planning Principal Secretary Bonface Makokha during the launch of the Economic Survey 2025 at KICC, Nairobi, on May 6, 2025.
The Office of the Controller of Budget has repeatedly flagged stalled projects as a recurring item in budget implementation reports, yet little changes year after year.
A review for the financial year ending June 30, 2025 indicated that some 158 projects in 18 devolved units have stalled due to weak procurement systems, poor supervision, and politicised tendering.
The Auditor-General’s recent reviews have also echoed similar concerns, warning that taxpayers continue to lose billions to incomplete and substandard projects.
In August last year, Ms Nancy Gathungu revealed that 33 counties had 248 stalled projects worth more than Sh20 billion during the financial year ending June 30, 2024.
Stalled projects often result from poor planning, inadequate budgeting, and bureaucratic inefficiencies with weak oversight mechanisms further exacerbating the problem.
According to the PS, the controls that are coming in will help the government implement projects without losing public money by ensuring taxpayers’ money is spent the right way.
He explained that the policy seeks to correct structural weakness by operationalising Article 220(2) of the Constitution, which requires national legislation to define the structure of development plans, the timelines for submission to legislative bodies, and the mechanisms through which national and county governments coordinate their planning and budgeting processes.
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“If a programme or project does not appear in an approved annual development plan, it should not be financed through the development budget. This provision is the reform’s most critical enforcement mechanism because it closes the porous entry point through which unappraised projects have historically entered the public investment pipeline,” he said.
The PS observed that for a long time, national government departments have been operating in silos but the current administration is embracing planning-as-one philosophy to create synergy by ensuring fidelity to the plan.
He pointed out that the draft policy will ensure resources follow the plan, which must be the aspiration of Kenyans with planning starting at the lowest level at the ward and cascaded to the top.
“If for any reason, any state department or agency deviates from the plan, then there are dire consequences for such an action. One of the consequences of failing to abide by the plan is stoppage of funding and then surcharge for misusing public funds by implementing what was not supposed to be implemented,” he said.
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