Governors accuse Mbadi of delaying disbursement of Sh27 billion to counties

Treasury CS John Mbadi. [File, Standard]

The Council of Governors (CoG) has piled pressure on the National Treasury and Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi to expedite the release of Sh27 billion owed to counties.

Finance, Planning and Economy Committee Chairperson, Kakamega Governor Fernandes Barasa, said they were unable to meet their financial obligations.

Barsa said counties are facing serious financial strain after receiving Sh23 billion of the Sh50 billion supplementary allocation under the County Governments Act of 2025.

"I want to tell our CS National Treasury Mbadi that we have the County Government Additional Act, which allocated Sh50 billion to counties in May 2025.

"As at June 30th, you had only disbursed Sh23 billion," said Barasa, who accused Mbadi of using what he termed as delay tactics to deny the counties funds.

He said the delays have affected the operations of county governments.

"The CS maintained that the government has no fiscal space to disburse Sh27 billion, and yet these are funds coming from the development partners," said Barasa.

He added: "I want to request our CS Treasury to expedite the supplementary budget 2025/2026 disbursement of Sh27 billion related to our conditional grants coming from development partners."

Barasa emphasised that the disbursement of the remaining funds would stabilise county operations and ensure that essential services reach people without interruption.

He said that governors are unable to perform their duties effectively and implement some of their development projects, adding that critical services in the counties have stalled.

"We need to continue offering critical services to our people, such as healthcare, besides meeting other financial obligations, and we should collaborate with the national government in serving our people because they are the same people, and that is what we agreed with President William Ruto," said Barasa.

President Ruto this year assented to the bill that paves the way for counties to get the billions from development partners for various projects.

The law builds on constitutional mandates to ensure counties have sufficient resources to perform their functions.

Previous delays in disbursements of additional allocations disrupted development and service delivery, a challenge the Act aims to address through a more predictable funding mechanism.

Some of the funds are coming from the Financing Locally-Led Climate Action (FLLoCA).

The funds are to finance architecture, reinforcing the country’s commitment to locally led, community-driven climate action.

The European Union and the Danish Agency for International Development (Danida) are also funding some of the projects in rural areas.