The Sh10.5 billion Road Maintenance Levy Fund (RMLF) became the bone of contention between senators and Members of the National Assembly during the first meeting of the Mediation Committee on the County Government Additional Allocation (CARA) Bill, 2024.
The meditation team members clashed after Members of the National Assembly insisted they would not take part in the talks until the Council of Governors (CoG) excluded them from the ongoing case which they challenged in court after the MPs excluded county governments from benefiting from the fund.
Counties allocation
RMLF is among the eight funds provided for in the County Government Additional Allocation Bill, 2024.
Others are allocation for the payment of the Community Health Promoters, County Aggregate and Industrial Parks, construction of county headquarters for some counties, payment for museum staff and proceeds from court fines and mineral royalties.
The disagreement on the matter started after MPs David Kiplagat (Soy), John Chikati (Tongaren) and Hussein Weytan(Mandera Est) warned that by discussing the matter, the Committee was in contempt of court and thus proposed that the talks be halted.
Said Kiplagat.“The matter of RMLF is in court and therefore this committee is in sub judice. I propose that we should stop this process until the matter in court is determined or it is withdrawn.” Weytan insisted that they would only proceed with the matter once the court case filed by the governors is withdrawn.
Added Chikati: “There are only two options available for us. Let the CoG proceed with the RMLF case until it’s concluded or parties withdraw the case so that we can have a basis for negotiation.”
Oversight counties
Kiharu MP and National Assembly Budget Committee chairperson Ndindi Nyoro told senators to reach out to governors as they are the ones who oversight counties to have them drop the case.
He said: “You are the institution that oversight the counties. In your daily duties, you come into contact with governors. I am not directing you. I am simply requesting you to reach out to them and implore them to withdraw the case. There is absolutely no reason for the government agencies to take each other to court.”
But on their part., Senators insisted that the process should continue, arguing that only the RMLF issue is a subject of the court proceedings.
Said Homabay senator Moses Kajwang: “We agree the Issue of RMLF is sub judice. We are ready to shelve it and focus on other issues in the Bill.”
The deadlock now threatens to stall the release of some Sh6.9 billion to the devolved units. While the Senate gave the counties Sh61 billion, the National Assembly slashed the amount to Sh46 billion, triggering the formation of the mediation committee.
In the original bill that was passed by the senate, a total of Sh42 billion was set aside for supporting 17 donor-funded projects across the 47 counties but when they considered the Bill, the National Assembly reduced the figure to Sh15.4 billion.
Conditional grant
Of the Sh15.4 billion, Sh10.5 billion is from the RMLF, and another Sh528.1 million which had been allocated as conditional grant to five counties to construct their headquarters was removed.
The five counties include Isiolo, Lamu, Nyandarua, Tharaka Nithi and Tana River.
The National Assembly also removed Sh30 million which is the cost of the transfer of museums function and another Sh7.4 million which is accrued from court fines collected from by the national government for people convicted of breaking county laws. Counties’ share of mineral royalties, which had been allocated Sh1.1 billion was also removed while the allocation of Sh4.5 billion allocation to County Aggregation and Industrial Parks (CAIP) was reduced to Sh2 billion.
Similarly, the Bill has allocated Sh3.2 billion to compensate the Community Health Promoters (CHPs) Programme.
The National Assembly reduced the figure to Sh2.584 billion which the Senate has opposed arguing that the figure is inadequate since it can only compensate about 86,133 CHPs as opposed to the identified 107,831 CHPs.
