A new powerful Treasury-based agency is set to take up vetting and approval of new public projects valued above Sh100 million to curb rampant wastage of billions of shillings of taxpayers cash.
The draft Public Investment Management (PIM) guidelines propose a Public Investment Management Department to appraise all requests for funding based on quality and cost-effectiveness of intended projects.
The Treasury says that the absence of a public investment management framework has opened room for shoddy projects finding their way into the budget, putting unnecessary distortion on funding plans.
The department will be responsible for approving funding for new projects and also carrying out independent evaluations for medium, large and mega projects.
The Treasury defines small projects as those costing less than Sh100 million while medium projects are those cost en Sh100 million and Sh500 million. All projects costing between half a billion and Sh1 billion will be classified as large while mega projects will be those valued above Sh1 billion.
Kenya is currently grappling with public debt that has crossed the Sh5 trillion mark, most of it spent on projects whose costs were either highly inflated or whose economic benefit to the country has been questioned.
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