MCAs approve budget to pay Nairobi pending bills
By Alvin.Mwangi, January 23, 2023Nairobi MCAs have approved Governor Johnson Sakaja’s first supplementary budget for the year 2022/23.
The Sh39 billion budget is a big win for the MCAs who will now access car grants and mortgages, cumulatively to the tune of Sh651 million. From the amount, each member will pocket Sh5 million to be repaid in 48 months.
Key changes in the supplementary budget were necessitated by recommendations of the Controller of Budget (CoB) to in corporate additional resources made available following enactment of the County Governments Additional Allocations Act, 2022.
“Everything has now been aligned in accordance with the PFM Act and recommendations of the Controller of Budget and Members will now be able to get their car loans and mortgages”, chairman finance, budget and appropriations committee Wilfred Odallo said.
Odallo said the budget reflects governor Sakaja’s manifesto to ease transportation in the city.
“We wanted to align ourselves to the issues of car loans for the members and they will now have access to car loans and mortgages,” Odallo said.
“Contractors will also be paid because we have added a lot of money to the issue of pending bills. We have actually realigned everything according to the Governor’s manifesto,” he added.
In light of the manifesto, Sh125 million was set aside for the purchase of electric public transport buses so as to ensure reduced smoke emissions, resulting in a healthier ecosystem.
At the same time the assembly reduced publication of the appropriation bill from seven days to one day, in what they described as for the best interest of Nairobi residents.
The health sector received an additional conditional grant allocation of Sh15.9 million under the Danida Universal Health Care (UHC) programme, which will be used to improve services in health facilities across the county.
To improve infrastructure on city roads, the department of public works, transport and infrastructure was allocated Sh100 million to go towards construction and maintenance of roads and drainage. For education, youths and sports, the committee added Sh100 million towards building stadiums, and reduced the technical and vocational training development allocation by Sh34.7 million meant for civil works.