Create framework to use idle cash at the Treasury

In the last few weeks, we have been treated to bewildering reports showing that billions of shillings remain idle at the National Treasury even as the needs for which the funds were created remain dire. It is an indictment on our public funds’ management and something must be done urgently.

First, it was the report that not a coin of the Sh9.7 billion raised two years ago to fight the Covid-19 pandemic has been utilised. Why? You might ask. The team to oversee the fund has not been appointed for reasons that are not clear. And so, as the mandarins at the Treasury dilly-dallied, hundreds of lives were lost and thousands of livelihoods destroyed.

Then this week we learn that the same ministry is sitting on Sh7.5 billion in royalties that have accumulated in the last five years. It is unable to disburse the billions simply because it lacks a framework for sharing the funds.

This is cash that is partly meant to develop the communities from whose areas minerals are exploited, but Auditor-General Nancy Gathungu fears that the finite minerals might get depleted before the communities see a shilling from the royalties fund.

What’s more, the same office raises concern that the money may be put to other uses, noting that the Treasury is yet to put in place a mechanism to ensure that the share of county governments and communities is safeguarded until structures are in place for sharing of collected royalties.

But this poor utilisation of scarce public funds is not only reflected in the Treasury. The Parliament has stood as the idle cash from the equalisation fund rose to tens of billions of shillings.

The State made the first disbursement two years ago after the creation of the fund in 2012 due to the failure of the Treasury and MPs to agree on the model for the fund in line with the Public Finance Management Act.

Going forward, the Treasury and Parliament should move with haste and draft and pass regulations needed to utilise funds. Any red tapes in the way of prompt usage of these funds should be eliminated. Doing so does not require rocket science, but just goodwill.