Upon reviewing the implementation of the 11th Five Year Plan, the Royal Audit Authority (RAA) revealed that Gross National Happiness Commission (GNHC) had identified 16 National Key Result Areas (NKRAs) without a proper study.
There was no document to support the analysis conducted to come up with the NKRAs. And due to this, the targets of the 11th Five Year Plan was not fully realised and achieved. The RAA carried out the review from the financial year 2013-2014 and 2017-2018. The report was publicly made available earlier this month.
NKRAs are the outcomes at the national level that the government needs to achieve over the plan period. And the performances of NKRAs are measured through Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) with baselines and targets at the national, sectoral and local government levels.
The RAA observed that there was an absence of proper study carried out on identifying the KPIs and programmes before finalising the plan.
Further, the report states that the formulation of KPIs, baselines and targets forms a critical part of the planning process. It requires a systematic and scientific method and not based on theoretical assumptions. Therefore, the RAA proposes GNHC to develop a scientific method to ensure proper setting of targets and KPIs and maintain documentation of all the processes carried out to address all the issues pointed out.
Likewise, it was observed that GNHC had conducted a mid-term review and published the report in the year 2016. But it did not publish the revised plan documents. Thus, it did not provide the holistic information on the overall status of the plan. Similarly, the GNHC has not carried out the final assessment of achievement of the 11th Five Year Plan.
To this, RAA recommended GNHC to institute an effective monitoring and evaluation process to provide information, indicating the extent to which objectives are being achieved.
The RAA also observed gaps in the data production and its report published. For instance, from the 61 KPIs identified for 16 NKRAs, the RAA could not establish achievement status for 8 KPIs due to absence of data.
Further, it was observed that the documentation and reporting framework adopted were inconsistent with the plan documents.
Moreover, RAA found that almost all the agencies have varying practices of a data recording system. There was no defined format for recording information on the tracking of the five-year plan targets and activities.
Thus, the RAA suggested that GNHC and NSB should strengthen data production to have reliable and accurate data for better reporting and informed decision making in the development of the country.
The report also highlighted the implementation of ad-hoc or additional activities both at central and local government level contributed to non-achievement of planned targets under the NKRIs. The overall expenditure for the 11th five-year plan was recorded more than Nu 224bn, which exceeded by around Nu 11bn from the overall budget outlay of Nu 213bn.
Sonam Pem
