The role of budgetary controls on community based funded projects: a case of Tanzania social action fund (TASAF) at Kilwa district council

Completion of a project depends much on the budgetary control systems. Today, most of the community-based projects fail or happen to be partially completed due to lack of knowledge and understanding on budgetary control systems and community involvements in not only initiating but also preparation of budgets of the planned projects. This study aimed at finding out how TASAF II (one of the most successful projects in the country) runs its budgetary control systems, a case of Kilwa District council TASAF II projects in order to disseminate the knowledge in other community-based projects for successful completions and sustainability. Questionnaires, interviews and discussions, Observations and documentary reviews were employed in data collection and Statistical Package for Social Sciences was employed in data analysis. Participatory approach, timely release of funds, conformity expenditure, and establishment of standard performance, corrective action in cases of deviations, community members’ contributions and partnership supports were found to be the key roles of budgetary control systems in achieving TASAF II community based projects. In conclusion, the effective implementations and accomplishment of community- based projects, among others, depends on the budgetary control systems particularly participatory planning which provides feel of ownerships, implementations, resource arrangement and allocations, monitoring and evaluations. Hence, it is recommended that: participatory approach to all community based projects is very important and further, an intensive research needs to be done in order to explore the in-depth reasons as to why there is mass (except TASAF projects) failure of community based projects so as it comes out with solutions that could be imparted to policy- makers. However, the suggested research should be held in different areas where TASAF II runs community based projects in order to come up with generalized idea that makes TASAF II projects credible.