Financial Monitoring and Financial Overruns: A Case of the Kigali Infrastructure Project (KIP) in Nyarugenge District, Rwanda

Financial overruns threaten the timely and efficient delivery of urban infrastructure, yet the relative contribution of different monitoring practices remains insufficiently documented in specific Rwandan projects. This study examined the associations of budget monitoring, cash-flow monitoring and cost-control monitoring with perceived financial-overrun control in the Kigali Infrastructure Project, Nyarugenge District. A descriptive mixed-methods design was used. Of 214 questionnaires administered, 204 were returned (95.3%); three project managers also participated in key-informant interviews. Questionnaire data were analysed using descriptive statistics, Pearson correlations and multiple regression in SPSS version 23, while interviews were analysed thematically and yielded four themes that broadly echoed the survey results. The regression model accounted for 77.3% of variation in the study’s financial-overrun outcome (R² = .773; F(3, 200) = 226.725, p < .001). Budget monitoring (β = .626, p < .001) and cost-control monitoring (β = .379, p < .001) were significant positive predictors; cash-flow monitoring was not (β = .012, p = .850) after adjustment for the other predictors. The findings identify budget oversight and expenditure control as the strongest correlates of respondents’ reported success in containing overruns. Project managers should strengthen variance review, corrective-action tracking and cost-control procedures while investigating operational barriers to cash-flow effectiveness. Because the evidence is cross-sectional and based principally on stakeholder reports, it cannot establish causation or independently verify actual changes in project costs.