CS Henry Rotich on collision course with governors over donor funds

Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich has opened up another battlefront with governors over the control of billions in donor funds.

Mr Rotich insists that the money to the devolved units should be channelled through the national government.

Rotich turned down pleas by governors, who have been calling for funds from development partners and conditional grants from the government to be channelled directly to them, saying the devolved units were not known to the donors as independent entities

Speaking during the ongoing Legislative Summit in Mombasa, the CS maintained that donors want to deal with a country, not devolved units, and thus Treasury could not allow county administrations to have direct access to the funds.

"We know there are governors who want to deal with donors directly as if counties are a country on their own. These development partners do not know these entities," he said.

He also said conditional grants must be channelled through the line ministries for which the funds are factored, ruling out calls by governors that Treasury directly deposit the money in county revenue accounts at the Central Bank.

To avoid over-reliance on government allocations, Rotich said efforts must be made to raise local revenue, even as he warned against spending the collection at the source.