CoB asks national, county governments to submit financial reports

Controller of Budget Margaret Nyakang'o on March 30, 2023. [Elvis Ogina, Standard]

National and county governments have three days to submit financial and non-financial reports for the first six months of the 2023/2024 financial year to the Controller of Budget (CoB).

The Office of the Controller of Budget has directed the governments to furnish it with the required information by January 15.

"Please furnish this office with the required information by 15th January 2024, in line with Section 83 of the Public Finance Management Act, 2012 to prepare the report as required by the law. Your duty to cooperate with the Controller Budget is provided under Section 16 of the COB Act, 2016," read the circular in part.

The CoB noted that Section 9 (1) of the Controller of Budget (COB) Act 2016 requires the CoB to submit to Parliament quarterly budget implementation reports for the two levels of government within 30 days after the end of each quarter.

The circular has been addressed to all Principal Secretaries and County Executive members in charge of Finance.

PSs of various ministries are required to provide details of development budget performance, payroll summary reports, reports on programme and sub-programmes non-financial performance, and detailed reports on project implementation.

The PSs are also required to give details on budget performance for state corporations and provide a brief of the major achievements and challenges faced in implementing the budget in the reporting period.

The CoB directed county government Finance Ministers to provide a report on recurrent and development expenditure performance by the county department for the period July 1, 2023 to December 31, 2023.

Counties are also required to provide details of their own source revenue arrears report as of December 31, 2023. The report should include interest and penalties charged on revenue arrears and waivers given by any county government and a progress report on the settlement of pending bills.

Other details county government should provide include a payroll summary report, a report on details of foreign travel expenditure, financial and non-financial statements for all established County Public Funds, and a report on the use of additional allocations (conditional grants and donor funds) received during the reporting period, indicating the activities and projects undertaken and their status.

"Submit a schedule showing the bank accounts maintained by the county government entities as of December 31, 2023. Further, soft copies of bank statements of bank accounts maintained by county government entities as of December 31, 2023 should be forwarded to the email address of your respective County Budget Coordinator," read the circular.

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