Counties expenditure review too important to be casual about

The Controller of Budget’s (COB) 2018/19 Quarter One County budget implementation review report, as covered by media houses, rightly depressed many Kenyans. Many Kenyans’ hope is locked in the possibilities wrought by devolution. The numbers in the report spoke of betrayal. From the media reports, the narrative was clear; devolution had failed to deliver on its promise. Instead of money being spent on development, majority of counties were splurging on salaries, travel and MCA allowances.

The media reports highlighted counties that had spent nothing on development while majority had spent less that 10 per cent of their revenue on development. Without further elaboration, this should cause sufficient angst as counties were meant to be the new engines of development, not imbibers of expenditure for non-essential spending.