The national Government revised the counties funding downwards for the financial year 2021/2022 to Ksh326 billion from the Ksh370 billion promised by President Uhuru Kenyatta.
The revision caught the senators by surprise seeing that they were looking forward to the President keeping his word on the Ksh50 billion additional money he had promised.
The President negotiated a deal last year to break the tie over the delay in passing the revenue formula for the devolved units, he gave a pledge to have counties allocated at least Sh370 billion in equitable share in the 2021/2022 financial year.
Uhuru made the promise after Senators objected the Ksh316.5 billion assigned in the current financial year as insufficient to meet the needs in comparison to the Ksh335 billion baseline figure presented by the Commission on Revenue Allocation (CRA).
It would have increased their share by 16.9 percent.
“Our fear is that if money is not devolved to the counties as envisioned, key development projects will be affected. Parliament will resume in February and the budget statements have been brought to the Parliament for debate by the Treasury CS. We shall raise all the issues to the floor of the house and demand that the President pronounces himself clearly when it comes to issues of counties especially,” Senator Sylvia while reacting to the latest development.
As it is, the National Treasury accrues low revenue collection caused by the Covid-19 pandemic as the reason the government is not able to keep its end of the deal.
“Owing to the sustained underperformance in ordinary revenue, now worsened by economic and fiscal repercussions of the Covid-19 pandemic, a 16.9 percent growth in counties’ 2021/22 equitable revenue share allocation is not fiscally achievable,” indicates the draft BPS.
However, the National Treasury has vowed to have the equitable share increased to Sh343.9 billion if the draft BPS is passed by the National Assembly.
If the National Assembly sanctions the draft, the countiesâ budget for the 2021/22 financial year, conditional grants from the national government and loans from development partners will increase to KSh383.8 billion compared to KSh369.9 in the current financial year.
The four conditional allocations are the Road Maintenance Levy Fund (RMLF), the grant to level-5 hospitals, the compensation for user fees foregone and the rehabilitation of village polytechnics grants.
