Partial relief for cash-strapped counties as National Treasury release Sh31billion
The simmering total collapse of service delivery in counties has been averted after the National Treasury released Sh31billion to cash-strapped counties forestalling an eminent total paralysis due to cash crisis.
The Council of Governors chairperson Anne Waiguru said counties had received pending funds for the month of January on Wednesday.
However, in what paints a grim picture to the future of devolution under the president William Ruto’s administration, Waiguru said payments for February, March and April are yet to be cleared.
“We haven’t received money for three months, it was Ksh125 billion and it’s just yesterday they paid Sh3 billion and now we are expecting Ksh94 billion.” The CoG chairperson lamented.
Speaking when she appeared before the Senate County Public Accounts Committee, the governor said the situation in counties is dire as counties have never experienced such a cash crunch before.
“We have never been here, I have been a governor for five years and it’s really a very critical situation at the counties,” she said.
Waiguru said though COG is not making a lot of noise in the media, governors have been pushing for timely disbursement of funds behind the scenes on daily basis.
She also urged for timely release of funds as per the law in order to prevent budget roll-overs at the same time noting that delayed disbursement of funds was the cause of accumulation of pending bills that have been one of the impediments to effective service delivery in the devolved units.
The governor defended the Council’s position on issue of division of revenue to devolved units from the National Government saying the governors’ official position was in tandem with that of the Commission of Revenue allocation (CRA) which capped it at Ksh425 billion.
Waiguru, further urged the National Treasury to upgrade the Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS) in order to increase its efficiency and avert technological issues that affect counties’ absorption of funds.
The second-term governor said delayed release of funds especially towards the end of the financial year was making counties have budget rollover.
On matters of pending bills in counties, the governor said inflexibility of IFMIS to extend dates for allocations which are released after June 30th was to blame for the late absorption of funds by the devolved units.
She said that IFMIS-related hitches many times affect timely service deliveries in the counties noting that county governments have been facing challenges when requisitioning funds and incurring expenditures since the system has delays or at times fails completely.
Waiguru also asked the treasury to enhance the capacity of her staff so as to improve the services at the treasury.
“The system is as good as the personnel using it and therefore training of finance staff remains a critical component of civil service,” she said.
She said the country should change its budgeting system from cash based to the accrual system to stop rollover of liabilities which had no resources.
The PAC Chairman, who is also the Homabay Senator, Moses Kajwang asked the governor to have a consultative forum with the treasury officials and use her experience on IFMIS management to improve the service.
