Transfer of funds to counties not my mandate, says Waiguru

By RAWLINGS OTIENO

KENYA: Devolution and Planning Cabinet Secretary Anne Waiguru has said that the transfer of funds to the county governments was not under her mandate.

Instead, Waiguru threw the matter to the National Treasury and the Controller of Budget Agnes Odhiambo as to when and how the Sh210 billion will be sent to the various county bank accounts.

 “There are a number of procedures to be followed before the release of funds. KRA must give money to the Treasury and the Budget Controller must approve the budgets for counties before the funds are released. Certainly that is not our mandate,” said Waiguru.

The CS made the remarks during an inter-governmental consultative sector forum bringing together key ministries whose functions have been transferred and county executive members at Kenya School of Government in Nairobi on Monday.

Waiguru said the national and county governments were currently in the process of establishing Intergovernmental Relations Technical Committees that will be a platform for dialogue between the two levels of government.

Technical committee

And to effect the change, Waiguru disclosed that plans were under way to amend the Intergovernmental Relations Act 2012 to accommodate the technical committee, and also to support the work of the Council of Governors and another one that supports the work of the Summit, which is headed by President Uhuru Kenyatta.

“The objective of our proposal is to strengthen inter-county cooperation at the horizontal level and at the same time enhance the relations between the levels of government at the vertical level,” said Waiguru.

She at the same time, defended the Sh210 billion allocations to counties, saying it represented 32 per cent of the total revenue raised nationally.

Governors are currently collecting signatures from the public on their quest for a referendum that will see the Constitution amended to increase the minimum allocations to counties from 15 per cent to 40 per cent.

They also want the Constitution amended to give senators more powers over the control and sharing of devolution resources.

But Waiguru was put to task to explain the criteria that were used to transfer functions to the counties yet there are counties that do not have the capacity to handle the functions.

She defended herself saying that it was the mandate of the Transition Authority (TA) to establish which functions could be transferred.

However, speaking on behalf of governors, Nyamira Governor John Nyangarama warned the national government against micro-managing the transferred functions. He said that the functions were now in the hands of the counties and should be left under the supervision of the county executives and governors.

Health Cabinet Secretary James Macharia clarified that procurement and distribution of essential drugs was now a duty of the county government citing that Sh64 billion has been transferred to counties from a national budget of Sh98 billion.