Paper

Are the Taps Dry? Cash Flow in Kenya and the Implications for National and County Spending

Aug 14, 2017

August 2017 | by John Kinuthia, IBP Kenya

In the first quarter of the 2015/16 fiscal year, Kenya’s national government had a cash crunch that was covered extensively by the media, yet the reasons for the liquidity problems were never clarified. As the crisis eased media interest waned, but questions remained about the national government’s ability to manage cash flow properly in order to avoid service disruptions.

Additionally, numerous questions have been raised in recent years regarding the flow of funds from the national government to counties, who have frequently expressed concerns about delays in disbursements.

This Budget Brief presents an analysis of the available data on Kenya’s national government cash flow, focusing on cash inflows over the last six years and how that money has been disbursed across government agencies at the national and county levels.

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Are the Taps Dry? Cash Flow in Kenya and the Implications for National and County Spending (August 2017)

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Authors

John Kinuthia

Senior Program Officer, IBP Kenya, International Budget Partnership

John is a Senior Program Officer at the International Budget Partnership Kenya (IBPK). He joined IBP in October 2012 just as Kenya’s ambitious devolution program was taking off. John leads IBPK’s research and analytical work in Kenya, and he is part of the team that works to promote budget transparency and to improve public engagement on how the government raises and spends public resources.

He has done extensive research on Kenya’s public finance system for evidence generation that IBP uses to provide technical support to civil society organizations and, in some cases, government agencies. John’s research focuses on equitable revenue sharing mechanisms, equity in government expenditure, social protection, budget credibility, public participation in budgets, sub-national budget transparency, among other areas. His role also includes supporting capacity building and the publication of guides and tools that IBPK uses to improve community engagement with national and sub-national government budgets. John also plays a role in coordinating IBP’s programmatic work in Kenya, including supporting fundraising and administrative tasks.

John holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT), an MBA in Strategic Management from the Kenya Methodist University, and a professional award on Decentralization and Local Governance from SOAS University of London.

Before joining IBP, John worked with Twaweza East Africa as an Associate Analyst, where he helped to build the Kenya Budget Explorer, a centralized budget portal, to improve citizens’ access to budget information. He is a big data enthusiast, a happy bee farmer, and a part-time historian.

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