Senators summon Treasury PS over crunch in counties
By Rawlings, March 27, 2023
Senators have summoned National Treasury Principal Secretary Chris Kiptoo over delays in the disbursement of funds that has caused massive cash crunch and disruption of services in the devolved units.
The summons comes after the PS failed to appear before the Senate’s County Public Investments and Special Funds committee yesterday to shed light on why Counties have not received their equitable share funds for the last three months.
“The committee has agreed to summon the PS to appear before us on Friday, March 31, 2023 at 8am,” said Vihiga Senator Godfrey Osotsi.
Should he avail himself on Friday next week, the PS will be put to task over the controversial draft privatization Bill that seeks to give the Treasury free hand to sell state corporations.
The Bill which was on Tuesday endorsed by the Cabinet, allows Treasury to privatise State corporation without seeking the nod of Parliament.
“We are seeking clarification noting that some of the entities set for privatization, some of our counties have stake in those entities,” said Osotsi.
The PS will also explain the challenges that have been associated with the integrated financial management.
Counties have complained that the Integrated Financial Information Management System (IFMIS) challenges including downtime, were affecting financial transactions, thus affecting normal operations of the counties.
And apart from IFMIS, the committee noted that the delays in the disbursement of the County funds have made the life difficult for governors and their governments and that some counties are finding it hard to pay its employees.
The counties are in their fourth straight month without receipt of funds from the exchequer disbursements from the Treasury, in which the last disbursement was done in November last year.
Currently, the Devolved units are owed Sh122.1 billion as equitable share for the financial year 2022/23. The funds are outstanding disbursements for the months of December, January, February and March.
The Godfrey Osotsi led committee further charged that the counties are ‘suffering’ with most of them overstretched to the point that they cannot pay for various services being rendered in the Counties.
“The last equitable share they received was in November. So, we are talking about four months. The counties are suffering,” said Osotsi.
“Some are even unable to pay salaries. And those that are able to pay are incurring huge interests’ charges because of overdrafts they get from commercial banks,” he added. Governors have in the recent past decried about the delays, saying they were affecting crucial services in the devolved units.
“This unwarranted delay has jeopardised the operations of the counties, rendered the counties unable to pay salaries, suppliers or continue to offer essential services to citizens,” said Council of Governors chairperson Anne Waiguru in a recent letter to Treasury CS Njuguna Ndung’u.