Governors convene meeting over devolved funds

By Vitalis Kimutai

Nairobi, Kenya: Governors have convened a crisis meeting in Nairobi to protest what they termed as an attempt by President Uhuru Kenyatta’s Jubilee government to frustrate operations in county units.

Bomet Governor Isaac Ruto confirmed to The Standard last evening that the meeting would be held today to discuss reduced funding of county governments.

“It is wrong for Jubilee government to drastically reduce funding to county governments when President Uhuru and his deputy William Ruto had declared that funding would be pegged at 40 per cent of national revenue,” Ruto said.

He added that by pegging funding at 21 per cent of revenue, when Commission on Revenue Allocation (CRA) had allocated 32 per cent, was retrogressive. Ruto, who is the chairman of the National Governors Forum, said that Treasury was out to kill devolved government units by starving them of funding.

“It looks like the Jubilee leadership is either asleep or out to frustrate the devolved units because by allocating Sh175 billion out of a budget of Sh1.6 trillion is a big joke,” Ruto said.

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He added, “We have been given 70 per cent of the functions yet the national government is retaining 80 per cent of the money. It cannot be allowed to happen.”

Ruto convened a meeting on Monday that brought together technocrats from Treasury, CRA and those from Transition Authority as he sought to unlock the stalemate.

Fiscal year

Treasury, thereafter, agreed to review its allocation upwards to Sh204 billion. The meeting also agreed on the formula of sharing the Sh204 billion among county governments in the 2013/14 fiscal year, with Ruto saying the Jubilee government was committed to fully supporting devolution.

Treasury had initially allocated Sh154 billion, but agreed to raise the figure to Sh175 billion Monday. The remainder of Sh29 billion will be allocated to counties as conditional and non-conditional grants.