Senators will henceforth limit their oversight of the county finances to only monies allocated to the devolved units from the national shareable revenue.
For the locally generated revenues, the County Assemblies have the power in over-sighting the county executive, the Court of Appeal has held.
“It is incontrovertible that Article 96 (3) restricts the Senate’s oversight role to the supervision of national resources allocated to counties, and it is clear that the provision does not authorise the Senate to oversee county resources other than revenues from the national government.
We say this because with regard to other resources, the County Government Act and the Public Finance Management Act enables county governments to raise revenues and resources, including grants and donations from other sources, and since Article 185 (3) vests the county assemblies with an oversight role over the county executive committee and any other county executive organs, it means that county assemblies are mandated to oversee the management and expenditure of locally generated revenues through county executive organs within the county,” stated Justices Asike-Makhandia, Daniel Musinga, Anne Murgor, Otieno Odek and Sankale ole Kantai in the June 7 judgment.
“The inference here would be that there are two levels of oversight that is — at the national level with the Senate commanding oversight over national revenues, and at the county level where the county assemblies retain oversight over revenues generated within the county,” the judges added.