You're out of order, Wavinya warns Speaker as budget crisis deepens

Machakos governor Wavinya Ndeti addresses supporters in Machakos town on September 2, 2026. [John Muia-Standard]

The budget implementation crisis in Machakos County has taken a new twist after  Governor Wavinya Ndeti came out strongly to challenge Speaker Ann Kiusya’s authority to declare a memorandum “inadmissible.”

Addressing her supporters in Machakos town, the Governor declared Ms Kiusya was out of order by declining to subject the memorandum on the Machakos County Appropriation Bill, 2026 to the plenary for debate and voting by Ward representatives.

On August 31, 2026, Wavinya stormed the County Assembly premises flanked by a handful of executive staff where she personally handed a memorandum on the budget to the county assembly clerk, Peter Mbatha, citing what she termed as unlawful mutilation of the document.

The budget as approved by MCAs, she said, violated statutory limits, dismantled essential services and undermined the county’s financial independence.

MCAs had amended Wavinya’s budget and slashed a whopping sh 853 million from the sum total of the 17.7 billion which the county hopes to spend in the current Financial Year.

However, when the governor returned the budget to the assembly seeking a reconsideration, the Speaker declared the memorandum “inadmissible,” triggering fury and resentment from Wavinya.

“I wish to clarify for the benefit of the Speaker that there is no legal provision for a speaker to declare a governor’s memorandum “inadmissible.” The law says the governor must either assent to the Bill or return it with a memorandum giving reasons for the return. Once returned, the assembly can either accommodate the governor’s concerns or pass the returned Bill again with a two thirds majority,” the governor said.

The governor noted the Speaker broke the law by unilaterally declaring the memorandum ‘inadmissible’ without subjecting it to the plenary for debate as required by the law.

“It is important that we interrogate, call out and condemn what appears to be a notorious trend of blatant disregard to constitutionalism and the rule of law exhibited by the Speaker,” she said.

A furious Wavinya faulted the County Assembly’s decision to completely scrap the sh 126.9 million allocated for the county’s Revenue Management System warning the move would cripple all the county operations.

Other programs whose budgets Wavinya claims the county assembly had interfered with include, the Machakos Youth Service (MYS), the Governor Wavinya Cup tournament, Wikwatyo Fund, the ECDE feeding and milk program, grassroots county administration budget and funding for the upgrading of selected national government roads.