INFLUENCE OF FINANCIAL CONTROL ON STRATEGIC PLAN IMPLEMENTATION AT THE NAROK COUNTY REFERRAL HOSPITAL, KENYA.

Abstract

Narok County referral hospital faces huge technical staff deficit, occasional industrial action, regular stock out of essential commodities, poor staff remuneration, lack of adequate essential health equipment and heavy workload on technical staff. These problems could be as a result of inadequate financial control at the Narok County Referral Hospital (NCRH). Three theories - public budgeting, balance score card and Functionalist were employed to explain the relationship between financial control and strategic plan implementation at the NCRH in Kenya. In this context, the study sought to determine influence of budgeting, book keeping and disbursement of allocated funds on strategic plan implementation at the NCRH. To achieve these objectives, the study hypothesized that there is no relationship between budgeting, book keeping and disbursement of allocated funds at the NCRH. The study adopted descriptive research design. The target population of the study were employees of NCRH. Sample frame of the study was the Human Resource database of the hospital, the study adopted census as the sampling technique. Primary data was collected using three-point Likert scale questionnaire administered to 30 heads of departments seeking their perception on various parameters. Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) and Bartlett’s test of sphericity were used to test whether data collected was adequate for factor analysis. factor analysis was done through total variance explained, the scree plot and rotated component matrix. The relationship between variable was determined using correlation analysis and hypothesis tested at 95% confidence level. On the first objective of the study, the result indicated that there is a direct moderate positive relationship between formal budgeting and availability resources and availability of professionalism at the NCRH. (r=.513**, P=.004), (r=.556**, p=.001) Similarly, budgetary participation showed a direct moderate positive relationship with availability of medical resources (r=.436*, P=.016), r=.337, p=.069). The null hypothesis was therefore rejected and alternative hypothesis accepted. On the second objective, the findings indicated that there is a direct moderate positive relationship between book keeping analysis and availability of medical resources but a direct weak positive relationship with availability of professionalism at the NCRH. (r=.459*, P=.011), (r=.396*, p=.030) The null hypothesis was rejected and alternative hypothesis was accepted. On the third objective, the findings indicated that there was a direct weak positive relationship between timely disbursement of funds and availability of professionalism at the NCRH. (r=.380*, p=.038) Similarly, availability of funds showed a direct moderate positive relationship with availability of professionalism at the NCRH. (r=461*, p=.010). The null hypothesis was therefore rejected and alternative hypothesis accepted. Based on these findings, the study concludes that improvement in formal budgeting has a direct positive relationship with availability of resources and professionalism at the hospital similarly to budgetary participation. The study also concludes that improvement in book keeping analysis has positive weak relationship to availability of medical resources and professionalism at the hospital. Finally, the study also concludes that improvement on timely disbursement of funds has a weak positive relationship with availability of professionalism while improvement on availability of funds has a moderate positive relationship with availability of professionalism. The study therefore recommends that for successful strategic plan implementation at the NCRH, there is need to enhance active participation of all the hospital stakeholders in budgeting process and to put in place effective budgetary control mechanisms. Secondly, there is need to have effective book keeping in order to track, monitor and control all their finances and finally there should be disbursement of funds in the right tranches on timely basis.