Governors meet to deliberate Sh46 billion budget cut

Hillary Mageka @hillarymageka

The Council of Governors (CoG) is this morning scheduled to hold a meeting to deliberate on the move by National Treasury to slash county allocations by Sh46 billion.

On Friday, the National Treasury reduced the counties budget by Sh46.35 billion owing to Covid-19 pandemic’s effects on the economy.

But CoG chairman Wycliffe Oparanya faulted the move,  terming it ill-conceived and meant to cripple county operations.

“It is clear the national government does not appreciate the role counties are playing in the campaign to contain the spread of the coronavirus,” said the Kakamega governor.

“It is so frustrating when counties make sacrifices to support efforts by the national government but end up being denied funds.”

According to County Allocation of Revenue (Amendment) Bill 2020, the Treasury has cut county equitable share of revenue by Sh30 billion and reduced conditional grants by Sh16.35 billion.

Biggest losers

Treasury Cabinet Secretary Ukur Yatani said the revision of allocation has been necessitated by deficit in revenues raised by the Kenya Revenue Authority because of the pandemic.

He said the pandemic had hit revenue performance hard, with the taxman projected to record a Sh233.8 billion shortfall.

If amendments are endorsed by Parliament, Nairobi, Kakamega and Kilifi and Turkana will be the biggest losers. Nairobi which had initially been allocated Sh15.79 billion will lose Sh4.67 billion.

Kakamega county will lose Sh987 million, Kilifi (Sh990 million), Turkana (Sh999 million), Bungoma (Sh843 million), Kitui (Sh837 million), Nakuru (Sh993 million), Mombasa (Sh669 million) and Kisumu (Sh648 million). 

Others are Machakos (Sh735 million), Migori (Sh642 million), Uasin Gishu (Sh600 million) and Tana River (Sh555 million).