MCAs approve Sh1b in budget for projects

The county government has retained its projection for Own Source Revenue at Sh1,690,079,199. [iStockphoto]

The county assembly has approved Sh1 billion supplementary budget for the 2022/23 Financial Year to finance development projects.

According to the Budget and Appropriations Committee report tabled by the Chairman Dominic Ndambuki (Kathiani Central MCA) and adopted by the House, the budget of the county government of Machakos now stands at Sh12,610,752,230.

Recurrent expenditure will gobble Sh8,820,397,657 while development vote takes up Sh3,790,354,573 which translates to a development ratio of 30 per cent versus 49 per cent for personnel emoluments/operations ratio.

To sustain the high demand for healthcare services, ward representatives approved a budget of Sh4.1 billion for the Department of Health and Emergency Services by increasing the department's budget by Sh2.7 billion compared to last year's budget which stood at Sh3.7 billion.

Recurrent expenditure

"The committee recommends that recurrent expenditure for the department be increased to Sh3,924,560,835 and development expenditure to Sh725,101,281," said Ndambuki.

The MCAs allocated Sh830,668,780 million to the Department of Agriculture, Food Security and Cooperative Development while Sh456 million will go towards development expenditure and Sh375 million to recurrent budget.

"The county Treasury proposes that the total recurrent budget estimates for the department be retained at Sh374,588,632 and proposes to increase the development budget by Sh96,156,327 from Sh456,080,148 to Sh552,236,475," said Ndambuki.

Other huge spenders will be departments of Transport, Roads and Public Works which was allocated Sh1.1 billion, Office of the Governor (Sh566,479,033), Finance and Economic Planning (Sh540,338,883) and Department of County Administration and Decentralized Units (Sh494,990,736).

An analysis of the proposed changes reveal a revision of the approved annul budget from Sh11,596,315,959 to Sh12,610,752,230. The recurrent expenditure will increase by Sh731,928,932 while development expenditure will increase by Sh282,507,339.

At the same time, conditional grants have increased from Sh610,440,182 to Sh891,892,118 which, the report says, will be applied to the recurrent and development expenditure.

The county government has retained its projection for Own Source Revenue at Sh1,690,079,199.