WITHOUT doubt, the increased Constituency Development Fund (CDF) announced by the Minister of Finance and National Planning, Dr Situmbeko Musokotwane has been a major talking point. The increase is indeed impressive, from K1.6 million to K25.7 million.
The increment, announced during the presentation of the 2022 national budget in Parliament last Friday is in tandem with the UPND’s campaign promise of taking resources to the districts. It also resonates well with the new dawn administration’s objective of sharing the national cake equally.
While the policy is well meaning, it is important that there is caution on how this CDF will be used. In fact, this now seems to be the bone of contention among many stakeholders, as to whether the districts or constituencies have the qualified human resource to administer the fund. It is in this vein that we agree with the former Vice President of the Forum for Democracy and Development, Mr Chifumu Banda on the need for the government to deploy experienced public officers to take charge of the process of CDF allocation to ensure transparency and accountability.
Mr Banda said he is cognizant of the fact that all the constituencies might not have an auditor seconded from the Office of the Auditor-General hence the need for the government to take the urgent step of seconding auditors to all the constituencies. The increased CDF allocation has placed more responsibilities on the constituencies and it is only natural that the government be asked if the beneficiaries of these funds are capable of taking up these responsibilities.
Mr Banda for example brought out an important point, that the government must clearly set out on who the controlling officer at district level will be, that is the person who will be responsible for accounting for this money. Ndola’s Kabushi Member of Parliament Bowman Lusambo has also added a new dimension to the debate which the government must explain.
According to Mr Lusambo, the constituencies do not have capacity to manage the additional responsibilities that have come with the increased CDF funding. Mr Lusambo said his constituency in particular has only three members of staff comprising a secretary, security and an administrative officer and none had capacity to dispense the K25.7 million. “There is no competent individual in my constituency office that can administer the dispensing of the K25.7 million Community Development Fund in constituencies,” Mr Lusambo said.
Mr Lusambo said that it would be hard for him to dispense the funds with only three workers who were not even competent to implement the additional workload added by the policy shift. We believe this could be said about all the constituencies throughout the country, worse those in remote districts which do not even have a full staff complement.
The fear that has been voiced is that Government could be pouring money into a bottomless pit and defeat the very purpose for which the CDF is intended for. The new dawn administration has won kudos for this increased allocation, but it is also important that the nation is re-assured that this is a well thought-out programme from initiation to implementation.
