Hasten passage of Division of Revenue Bill to avert cash crisis

The supremacy battle between the Senate and the National Assembly over county revenue allocation has never gone away. Now, it threatens to paralyse operations at the counties. The Division of Revenue Bill failed to sail through Parliament on Tuesday after members of the National Assembly refused to accept Senate’s recommendation that county revenue allocations be increased by Sh29 billion on top of the Sh321 billion proposed by the Treasury for the 2017/18 financial year.

Ordinarily, when the bicameral Parliament fails to agree on a matter, the standard procedure is to have a mediation team from both houses iron out outstanding differences. This team failed to agree on the Division of Revenue Bill 2016, which means the Bill technically collapsed and will have to be re-introduced afresh.