Makueni County might soon tithe revenue collections to church

BY DANIEL NZIA

MAKUENI COUNTY; KENYA: Makueni County could soon become the first regional government to set aside a kitty to fund mainstream churches.

The County Assembly Majority leader Francis Mutuku has prepared a Bill seeking to allocate 10 per cent of the county’s resources to the church.

He said the Church Aid Bill, if passed, will allow the county government allocate money to the mainstream churches to carry out their development programmes.

Mutuku lamented that political leaders troop to churches for prayers and support during their hunt for votes but retreat soon after.

“The Bible demands that we give ten per cent of our income to the church. As a county we should also give ten per cent to the church to do their development”, he explained.

Speaking to The Standard on telephone, the Member of County Assembly for Nzaui/Kilili Ward also said he will table another Bill to establish Ward Fund to spur development at the grassroots level.

“We want to come up with a Ward Development Fund similar to the current Constituency Development Fund (CDF) kitty allocated to constituencies”, Mutuku added.

He said the County Assembly will debate and pass at least six Bills, which are pending in the house, once the assembly reconvenes on August 27. The house is on recess.

Mutuku attributed the delay in passing the Bills to wrangles between the Executive and the County Assembly over management of funds.

“The executive wanted to micro-manage us. We were supposed to beg the Governor to give us money to buy office tea,” he said adding the problem has since been sorted out and a “work together” agreement reached at.

House resumes

The other proposed Bills include security, land, sand harvesting, education and resource allocations.

In Machakos County, the County Assembly Members (MCAs) are yet to pass any Bills.

Kiima Kimwe/Muputi Ward MCA Timothy Kilonzo said the delay has been caused by the training of the House Legal Committee members, who are supposed to study proposed Bills before they are tabled before the house.

“We hope to fast-track the Bills once the house reconvenes after recess and move forward,” he told The Standard in Machakos yesterday.

Efforts to reach the county speaker Benard Mung’ata over the matter were fruitless as he did not answer his phone.

Meanwhile, Makueni and Machakos counties have refuted claims that they failed to spend half of the money disbursed in the first four months after the March 4 General Election.

Makueni Governor Kivutha Kibwana said he was shocked to read in the media that his county failed to spend allocated funds.

He said the county received a total of Sh224 million from the National Treasury in which Sh52 million and Sh9 million was spend in refurbishing the executive and Hansard offices respectively.

A further Sh150 million was spend on LATF projects, while Sh215 million was used on operations and staff salaries with the remaining Sh15 million going to local projects.