Counties panic over delay in releasing Sh76b as financial year comes ends

Kakamega governor Wycliffe Oparanya

The Council of Governors (CoG) has raised a red flag over Sh76billion not yet released but was allocated to counties in the 2019/20 financial year ending in less than a month.

The County bosses say that the remaining balance ought to have been disbursed to help counties deal with challenges of COVID-19 pandemic as well as floods and locust invasion across the country.

CoG through its chair Wycliffe Oparanya said Counties in the Western and North-Rift region continue to experience floods causing population displacement and increasing the risk of water-borne diseases and malaria.

He explained that in the financial year 2019/2020, County governments were allocated Sh316billion and out of this, only Sh240billion has been disbursed yet the financial year comes to an end in 27 days.

“We continue to appeal to the National Treasury and the Controller of Budget to disburse money to counties towards the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Oparanya.

According to Oparanya, the delay has interfered with staff salaries at the counties and for the health workers which in effect has caused low morale in executing their duties.

Article 202 of the Constitution provides that revenue raised nationally shall be shared equitably among the national and county governments and that the County governments may be given additional allocations from the national government's share of the revenue, either conditionally or unconditionally.

In Division of Revenue bill 2019, Parliament approved Sh316.5billion as the equitable share to the Counties.
Meanwhile, the county chiefs want trucks stopped from leaving the port of Mombasa until the backlog at the border points is cleared.

This is after the road leading to Malaba border has trucks stretching up to Luandeti spanning across three counties of Busia, Bungoma and Kakamega.

“We call upon the President to intervene in this matter and propose that no more trucks should be allowed to leave the port of Mombasa until the backlog at the border points is cleared.”