ECDE and roads budget allocations reduced in changes

Murang'a Governor Mwangi Wa Iria. [Denish Ochieng, Standard]

The county assembly of Murang'a has approved a supplementary budget raising the annual spending by Sh38 million to fast-track development, six months to the expiry of Governor Mwangi wa Iria’s term.

MCAs approved reduction of allocations for roads and nursery schools, and increased allocations for health, agriculture and scholarships.

Budget and Appropriation Committee Chairman Francis Kibe said the budget has registered a 0.46 per cent increase from Sh10,6565,671,947 to Sh10,705,671,192.

In the realignments, Early Childhood Development Education (ECDE) lost Sh32 million, while Road and Infrastructure had its Sh320 million re-allocated to other programmes.

Kibe said the supplementary budget had been necessitated by the need to take care of avocado upgrading project, fertiliser subsidy to farmers, provision of hybrid seeds, small-scale traders support and completion of development at Kirwara Sub County Hospital, construction of the Cancer Centre at the Murang’a Level 4 Hospital among others.

The budget and appropriation committee is concerned that the local revenue projected for the financial year 2021/2022  to the tune of Sh1.5 billion is overly high, going by the collections for the last fiscal years, it is almost impossible to achieve the target,” said Kibe.

Nominated MCA Stephen Habire Chege led the MCAs in supporting the motion, saying it would help areas where it was most needed.

Contributing to the motion, Kimorori MCA Amos Murigi accused Iria’s administration of giving the county assembly a raw deal during the 2017-2022 period.

“We have only a few months to elections without anything tangible to show,” said Murigi apologizing for having let down the county population.

 

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