Using both population and area in sharing constituency funds

By MUNGAI KIHANYA

The Sunday Nation

Nairobi,

30 April 2023

The debate about sharing of revenue always splits the country into two halves – along a straight line running from Lokichogio at the North-West to Malindi at the South-East. The North of this line is sparsely populated while the South is densely populated.

People of the South insist that revenue should be shared according to population (hence “one-man-one-shilling”) while those of the North say that it should be based on land area. Both camps are right!

Providing public services in a small area with very many people is as difficult as it is in a large are area with few people scattered all over the place. For that reason, both factors should be taken into account when sharing out revenue.

 In the current method of sharing the National Government Constituency Development Funds (NG-CDF), 75 per cent of the money is shared equally among the 290 constituencies while the remaining 25 per cent is distributed on the basis of the number of wards in a constituency. The use of number of wards was an attempt to account for both area and population given that, to quote the parliamentary committee that made the recommendation, “the IEBC while delimiting boundaries considered a wide number of social-economic aspects which included population, geographical features…”

However, the persistent debate about this matter is an indication that this formular is not satisfactory. Perhaps the reason for the discontent is that, during the last boundary delimitation in 2012, the same debate of “area versus population” ensued. That time, the argument was about the number of constituencies in densely and sparsely populated areas. It would appear that the final verdict left a lot of unresolved discontentment.

For this reason, it would be better to use both population and area as separate factors in the distribution of the NG-CDF. The only question is how to allocate the money between the two parameters.

I would propose that the funds be divided into three parts in the ratio of 50:35:15. The first part (50 per cent of the money) to be shared equally among all constituencies; the second (35pc) to be distributed on the basis of population and the third (15) depending on land area of the constituency.

The reason for giving greater weight to population than area is that the difference between the largest and the smallest constituency is far greater than the gap between the most and least populous. Since a significant portion of the funds goes for direct human interventions (like education bursaries), then population deserves a higher weight.