TODAY “Meet Your MP” has taken a specific interest to look at a critical component of development in constituencies. This is the Constituency Development Fund (CDF), a tool meant to engineer infrastructure growth.
The concept of CDF, established in 1995, is one sure way of implementing development in a simultaneous fashion around the country.
That is if it is handled to its fullest muscle. The CDF started at K60,000 and is now pegged at K1.3 million per constituency and several guidelines have been fashioned on the need to adhere to proper usage of the funds.
The utilisation of the CDF comes with several guidelines aimed at ensuring proper usage and to benefit the community.
Zambia’s rural population is in dire need of infrastructure development: Roads, schools, health facilities and other social amenities form the range of desired services.
Present and previous governments have rolled out development in various fashions but the need is ever increasing.
As the Auditor General, Anna Chifungula has rightly put it in her latest audit report on CDF management, “The introduction of the CDF was a Government intervention aimed at financing micro-community-based projects in order to alleviate poverty.
“In this regard, it is important that the limited resources allocated for this purpose are efficiently and effectively managed in order to achieve the goal of poverty reduction for the development of our Country”.
Another argument by concerning members of Parliament (MPs) is that there is need to increase the CDF threshold from the current K1.3 million to around K5.6 million for each constituency.
In the previous columns featuring various MPs, they share the opinion that there is a backlog of development projects that have remained incomplete because of inadequate funds.
For instance Patriotic Front (PF) MP for Lupososhi Bwalya Chungu noted that much as the CDF was a driving force for development in rural areas, it was not sufficient in the current limit.
“If you compare to our counterparts in the urban based constituencies, they have several advantages over us to record development at a much faster pace than us running rural based constituencies. They have the private sector, who they can partner with but this is not the case with us,” Mr Chungu said.
These views were also aired by his Kafue counterpart, Obvious Mwaliteta, though based in the urban setting he feels most challenges can be well tackled if the CDF was adjusted upwards.
So did Luanshya MP Stephen Chungu, who said that there are several projects, he wishes to undertake for his constituents but the limiting factor is financial resources.
Though there is this desire to increase CDF, it has to be noted that the availability of increased funding can come at a great cost as well. There is the risk of misuse.
The latest audit report on CDF management shows that the trend of misusing public resources in the country has not changed for the better. More and more revelations expose glaring irregularities in the manner public funds including CDF are being managed by those charged with the responsibility to do so.
One cited case by the Auditor General, was the sharing of part of the CDF by some councillors and council officials in seven local authorities as sitting allowance.
This act is grossly against standard CDF regulations.
Overall, the report indicated that during the 2012 financial year, K41million was unutilised by January this year thus affecting developmental intentions of 58 constituencies.
The misuse of the funds further shows, irregular payments amounting to K10 million, failure to follow tender guidelines at K8.2million, unsupported payment of K5.2million among several other anomalies.
Another difficulty in the management of CDF is the late disbursement of the funds.
The CDF for the 2013 projects was released in the last quarter of the year, hence projects are still in wait currently.
The highlight of this development was confirmed by Moomba United Party for National Development (UPND) MP, Vitalis Mooya.
Mr Mooya argues that the late disbursement of CDF has been a major hindrance to undertaken development ventures adequately and efficiently.
“Right the CDF for 2013 was only released at the end of last year instead of in the first part of the year. And the council and other interested groups need to convene meetings to look at the projects and approve which ones will be undertaken. This is the scenario we face,” Mr Mooya said.
He proposed that CFD can be increased to around K5.6 million and measures are put in place to tighten regulations and build capacity of those officers charged with the responsibility of managing public resources.
Amidst the proposals to increase CDF, the Ministry of Local Government and Housing has directed, in a circular that all councils should adequately scrutinise projects to be funded from CDF.
The following were the directives;
(a) obtain standard designs from relevant government departments (departments under which sectors the proposed projects fall). An example given is that of designs for dip
tanks should be obtained and approved by the veterinary department.
(b) Engage only contractors who are registered with the National Council for Construction (NCC) and Buildings Department.
(c) Council and Government line departments should intensify supervision of projects to ensure quality and value for money is realised from the works.
(d) Project proposals for infrastructure submitted for approval should be accompanied by approved building designs/plans from government department and bills of quantities.
Additionally there should be physical and financial progress report of 2010, 2011 and 2012 CDF projects.
“I wish to report that monitoring of on-going infrastructure projects funded from 2010, 2011 and 2012 CDF allocations was conducted during the period December 22nd 2013 to February 6th, 2014. The monitoring exercise was meant to assess physical progress, adherence to guidelines and building standards and to estimate hardware materials required to complete on-going projects,” the circular stated.
Moomba Constituency alone proposed to undertake 73 projects at a cost of K5.6million.
This amount is way above the disbursed financial envelop of K1.3million. So if areas like Moomba and other constituencies have projects above the required CDF threshold, is there an urgent need to increase CDF as well?
Mr Mooya observes that development if implemented at constituency level, this will supplement government efforts to spread development and yield the desired results.
“This should not be done hastily because we know what increasing funds, comes with, some people may misuse and end up being locked. It can be done gradually, even over a period of 10 years, while during the same period, capacity building in councils can be done as well as tightening the regulations,” he said.
This is food for thought!
For comments and thoughts on this topic or any others in your Constituency, drop a mail to: namusak@gmail.com