County governments are now all smiles as the National Treasury confirms the disbursement of a total of 314 billion shillings to the 47 counties.
The amount distributed was to be in accordance with the County Allocation Revenue Act of 2018 and is 100 percent of the appropriations.
An additional amount of 46.1 billion shillings was given to the counties to supplement the equitable shares.
7.4 billion shillings from the Roads Maintenance Levy Fund collected by Kenya Roads Board; more than 15 billion shillings received from the National Government; proceeds from external loans and grants totaling 23.6 billion shillings earmarked to supplement the financing of devolved functions.
Some issues arose during the disbursement of funds especially affecting those counties that did not adhere to some specified requirements.
Treasury Permanent Secretary Julius Muia stated that 1.04 billion shillings for the development of youth polytechnics and 605 million shillings for construction of county headquarters were not disbursed. This happened because some counties did not adhere to requirements of specific conditional allocation.
Six counties had failed to comply with KRB Act prompting the National Treasury to withhold 844.9 million shillings from the Road Maintenance Levy Fund.
County accountants who did not submit written instructions to the Treasury requesting for funds disbursement costed their respective counties.
“The need for written instructions is stipulated in the Guidelines for the Management of Intergovernmental Fiscal Transfers (2017).”
“Accordingly, the Exchequer could not disburse 880 million shillings for the Water Tower Protection, Climate Change Mitigation & Adaptation Program and, 3.8 billion shillings for the Water & Sanitation Development Project,” said part of the statement.
PS Muia said that since the county governments were established back in 2013, they have received more than 1.7 trillion shillings in accrual.
Muia also pointed out that the revenue allocation of equitable share is fully disbursed and was done in accordance with Division of Revenue Act where it is above the minimum threshold.
During the last six years, aggregate annual payments to Counties grew by 164.4 billion shillings or 84 percent.
In per capita (or per person) terms, payments to County Governments have grown from 5,068 shillings in FY 2013/14 to 9,326 shillings in FY 2018/19. This translates to an annual average of 7,338 shillings, with Nairobi receiving the least (4,362 shillings) and Lamu the highest (24,270 shillings).
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