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Senate Bill to limit counties’ recurrent expenditure

But Governors have faulted the report saying the figures were “erroneous and exaggerated” while others attributed the huge wage bill to the high number of staff inherited from the defunct local authorities.

Council of Governors Chairman Isaac Ruto said it’s wrong to say counties are only focusing on recurrent expenditure yet they have rolled out plans that are functional at the counties.

“We received county allocation in September, what were we to spend in August, July and September on devolution? He posed. “We only paid salaries”

In the first quarter of 2013/14 financial year, some of the duties previously performed by the National Government were devolved to the counties as stipulated in the law.

Although the County Governments were expected to meet the personnel emolument costs of the public servants transferred to the County Governments, the National Government had to meet these costs because of the delay in operationalisation of the payroll system at the county level.

However, the Controller of Budget report notes that as at end of September 2013, the counties had not reimbursed these amounts.

The Controller of Budget notes that while counties had committed to setting aside at least 30 percent of the money available to them for development, many of them did not and only Nyeri County (30.3 percent) crossed the 30 percent threshold during the quarter.

According to the report, counties that had the highest ratio of development to total expenditure were Nyeri (30.3 percent), Tana River (26 percent) and Tharaka-Nithi (25.5 percent).

The reports further notes that counties spent Sh473.4 million in sitting allowances to MCAs, while foreign and local travel consumed Sh4.9 billion within the same duration which the Controller of Budget observes is unsustainable.

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Nairobi City County spent the highest amount of Sh113.3 million followed by Kisii, Migori and Meru which spent Sh28.9 million, Sh25.2 million and Sh17.1 million respectively.

Counties that had the least expenditure were Turkana, Tana River and Lamu of Sh1.1 million, Sh1.3 million and Sh1.4 million respectively.

Sh241.9 million was spent on conferences and hospitality and Sh161.2 million on training and a further, Sh708.5 million was spent on purchase of motor vehicles.

The county governments spent Sh7.11 billion (55 per cent) of total expenditure on staff compensation. Counties that had the highest proportion of their expenditures going into personnel emoluments were Kisii (83.7 per cent), West Pokot (81.4 per cent) and Kisumu (79.3 per cent).

Among counties that committed their entire budgets to recurrent expenditure and left nothing for development are Mombasa (Sh767 million), Kisumu (Sh338.4 million), Uasin Gishu (Sh278 million), Murang’a (Sh258 million), Makueni (Sh271 million) and Homa Bay (Sh280 million).

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