A Survey of Factors That Influence Local Authorities Financial Management: the Case of City Council of Nairobi
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Date
2010Author
Gathuya, Phillip M
Type
ThesisLanguage
en_USMetadata
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This study was a case study of city council of Nairobi where factors that influence the financial management of local authorities were the subject of investigation. Literature review was done based on five major factors, which is dynamic human resources in local authorities as requirement for efficient fmancial management, rapid urbanization, under funding and poor revenue collection by local authorities, urban slums and urban poverty.
Major instruments of collecting data were questionnaires targeted on ten heads of the respective departments out of the population of sixteen departments of the city council. These departments and the respective heads were considered as good representative sample from which a generalization was formed. Main findings from the study were that dynamic human resources, legal frame work, rapid urbanization, under funding, poor revenue collection, urban slums and urban poverty are significant factors that influence local authority fmancial management.
Major recommendations from the findings were that the city council should put in place programs to change the prevailing culture to deal with corruption and involve stakeholders to cultivate goodwill from the city residents. The funding from central government should be increased to meet the challenges of rapid urbanization. Modem capital budgeting and fmancing method should be considered to bring efficiency. Improvement should be made on external financial reporting in order to gain public confidence.
LAIFOMS and other information technologies should be expanded to increase revenue and add social value in service delivery such as to procure new equipments and service old equipments; improve physical infrastructures in education, health, housing, roads, urban slums and manage urban poverty in order to achieving its goal of becoming a world class African metropolitan city by 2030.
Publisher
University of Nairobi, Kenya