Relationship between post-audit practices and budgetary Performance of Suna East national government Constituency development fund, Migori county, Kenya

Abstract

Global and regional researchers have done studies on factors affecting budgetary performance of institutions and industries. Locally, the already done studies emphasize on monitoring and evaluation of National Government Constituency Development Fund (NGCDF) projects. The National Government of Kenya directs funds to local levels through the National Government Constituency Development Fund (NGCDF) with the aim of balancing the regional imbalances in development among the constituencies. However, studies indicate dismal performance of the Fund as evidenced by the misappropriation of up to Kshs 3.85 billion of allocations to the constituencies in the financial year 2013/14 with that of Suna East Constituency standing at Kshs 32,560,459.00 million the same period indicating poor budgetary performance. Empirical evidence shows that post-audit practices have an association with budgetary performance. While past studies indicate contradicting evidence on the relationship of post-audit practices with budgetary performance; studies to determine the association between reviewing of the Governance Process, value for money auditing and the examination of the association between the reviewing of existence, custody and safety of assets and budgetary performance for NGCDF Suna East are not known. Therefore, the general objective of this study was to determine the relationship between post-audit practices and budgetary performance of the National Government Constituency Development Fund in Suna East constituency. Specific objectives of the study were to: determine the association between the review of governance process and budgetary performance of NGCDF; establish the relationship between value for money audit and budgetary performance of NGCDF and examine the association between the review of existence, custody and safety of assets and budgetary performance of NGCDF in Suna East Constituency. The study was anchored on the, lending credibility theory and agency auditing theory. Correlation research design was adapted for the study for the period. The study’s target population was 116 respondents who were stratified into three; Fund Manager, NGCDF Committee Members and Project management Committee Members. Stratified random sampling will be used to select a sample of 90 respondents for the study. Both primary data collected using questionnaires and secondary data collected from audited financial statements, periodic returns, books of accounting and approved proposals were used. Reliability of questionnaire was tested on pilot data targeting 10 respondents which yielded alpha coefficients greater than .701 implying internal consistency. Content validity test was done using expert reviewers. Descriptive statistics such as the mean and standard deviation and inferential statistics using Pearson correlation and multiple regression analysis will be used to analyze data. The findings are that; review of governance process and budgetary performance had a positive and significant association (r = .457, p =.000) implying that review of governance process leads to improved budgetary performance; conducting value for money audit was a positive significant predictor of budgetary performance (β = .215 (p = .018) and review of existence, custody and safety of assets had a positive and significant association with budgetary performance (r = .441, p =.000). The findings of the study may benefit policy makers in new policy formulation, investors on how to partner with the Fund and future researchers in the area of post-audit studies for theory formulation.