By Tobias Chanji
Kwale ,Kenya: The county administration in Kwale has announced the closure of all bank accounts operated by the defunct council whose assets and liabilities it inherited.
The closure is in order to track past revenue and stabilise collection and banking under the new administration, according to officials who spoke to The Standard.
Meanwhile the county administration is short of the Sh9 billion it requires for development and it is also facing problems concluding its estimates for the 2013/2014 financial year due to instability in projected revenue.
Governor Salim Mvurya announced the closure during a four-day meeting with county executive committee members and ward representatives at a resort yesterday on budget drafting. “We want to seal all loop holes so as to see our revenue going up,” he said. Though he did not disclose the amount that was held up in these accounts county secretary Martin Mwaro said that around six bank accounts had been closed.
Pay salaries
The County Assembly has had an uphill task of drafting the budget early to beat the June deadline. “There is so much to do and time is not on our side,” explained the governor even as it became clear that the Assembly has lost its interim clerk Jefwa Mkare who got a job in the Kilifi County government.
The current budget now is Sh3.7 billion but is set to rise to Sh4.374 billion after an addition of money from the Equalisation Fund, according to the governor who said the revision might not generate money for salaries for employees transferred to the county after devolution kicked off.
“It is still not clear if we will pay salaries for health, agriculture and water ministries which we have taken over from the national government yet we have to approve it by the 30th of this month,” noted Mvurya.
