NG-CDF Survives 30 June. What the Court of Appeal Decided

Updated 2 October 2026.

The National Government Constituencies Development Fund does not end tonight. A three-judge bench of the High Court declared the NG-CDF Act unconstitutional on 20 September 2024 and ordered the fund and all its projects to stop at midnight on 30 June 2026. That order is gone.

On 6 February 2026 the Court of Appeal set the High Court judgment aside in National Assembly v Gikonyo & 9 others, Civil Appeals E884 and E868 of 2024, before Justices D. K. Musinga, F. Tuiyott and A. O. Muchelule. Striking down the whole Act was "disproportionate and inconsistent with the principle of severability", they held. One clause went. Part of section 43(9), which tied a constituency Fund Account Manager's custody of records to the term of Parliament, was severed. The rest of the Act stands, bursary money included.

Two of the original petitioners, Wanjiru Gikonyo and Cornelius Oduor Opuot, have taken the case to the Supreme Court in a petition of appeal dated 6 March 2026. No order suspending the Court of Appeal judgment appears on Kenya Law.

What the two courts said

The High Court's separation-of-powers finding rested on Article 95 of the Constitution, which gives the National Assembly representation, legislation and oversight. Justices Kimondo, Aburili and Thande held that a fund run through the constituency, a unit of political representation, broke the separation of powers "however far removed" the MP was from its management.

The appeal judges disagreed. When the National Assembly approves the people picked for the Board and the constituency committees, that is "a check on the executive power", they wrote. Section 43(9) was the only provision they found on the wrong side of the line.

Petitioners argued that the arrangement undermines the separation of powers, creates conflicts between levels of government, and duplicates functions assigned to county governments.

That last point is the one devolution advocates press hardest. It lost too. Section 24 of the Act limits projects to "works and services falling within the exclusive functions of the national government", and the court found no evidence in the record of duplicated funding or confusion between national and county projects in the almost ten years since the Act came into force on 19 February 2016.

The response

The National Assembly has passed a constitutional amendment bill seeking to entrench NG-CDF in the Constitution, and MPs have been clear they do not intend to let the fund go. The National Assembly separately approved entrenchment of multiple development funds despite repeated court rulings striking down similar arrangements.

Senators have been urged to reject the bid, on the grounds that it re-legislates something the courts have repeatedly found unconstitutional and that it undermines devolution.

Why MPs will not let go

Honestly: because it is the mechanism by which an MP is visible.

A Kenyan MP's constitutional job is legislation and oversight, both of which are invisible in a constituency. NG-CDF gave them bursaries, classrooms and water projects — things a voter can see and attribute.

Remove it and an MP's re-election case rests on a parliamentary record almost nobody reads. That is an existential change to how the office is contested, which is why the resistance is bipartisan and total.

In the constituency

The fund keeps running after midnight. Constituency committees set up under section 43 keep their legal basis.

Politically, MPs have a court win to point to, and every challenger still has a story about how the fund was misused. Both stories will run until polling day, 10 August 2027.

For an aspirant

Two practical consequences.

Do not build a campaign on a fund that may not exist. An aspirant promising bursaries from NG-CDF in 2027 is promising something whose legal status is unsettled.

Build the case that survives it. An MP or aspirant whose value is a fund has no value without the fund. One who has a record of problems raised by constituents, pursued and closed — a school roof, a water point, a chief's office that would not issue letters — has something that no court ruling can remove.

That record has to be logged as it happens, ward by ward, or it does not exist by the time you need it.

Related: what an MCA actually does.

What happens to students mid-term

A bursary is a commitment against school fees that fall due each term, so a cut-off in the middle of the school year would have landed on households first. The Court of Appeal removed the deadline nearly five months before it arrived. Nobody on an NG-CDF bursary loses it tonight.

The open question is the Supreme Court. A ruling that brings back the High Court's finding would bring back the cut-off question with it, and county bursary schemes cover some wards far better than others.

An aspirant can use the time. Find out which schools in your ward have students on NG-CDF bursaries, and what the county bursary pays there, before the Supreme Court rules.