Counties will be able access equitable share to pay salaries tomorrow
Counties will only access part of the balance of equitable share to settle the June and July salaries tomorrow due to delays in the digital payment platform, Council of Governors (CoG) chairman Wycliffe Oparanya has said.
Oparanya said despite the National Treasury releasing the Sh29.7 billion for the Month of June, counties will have to wait as it has been a challenge accessing the Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS).
“This amount will however, not be accessed by Counties because the IFMIS was only opened yesterday August 11 in the afternoon.
This money will be accessed by counties by the end of this week,” he said even as he called on the national government to fast track the testing of collected samples from the police suspects and prison departments.
The money is the balance of equitable share due to the devolved units in the last financial year and which the National Treasury is yet to disburse as required by law.
“We agreed that the money be released to the counties immediately so that they are able to pay salaries for June and July,” Oparanya said.
However, the counties will have to wait longer to access their share of this year’s revenue after the Treasury refused to release another Sh158 billion, which translates to 50 per cent of this year’s allocation to the 47 regions.
Oparanya said counties shall provide laboratory technologists to collect samples from suspects who are held at police stations so that the police do not struggle to transport them to testing centres.
“County Governments are committed to supporting the Police department to check the infection rate among suspects who are held in police cells.
At the same time the counties provide support to the Prison Department to ensure that the remandees and prisoners are not endangered by this pandemic,” he said in a statement last evening that in the last one week, 183 patients confined in home-based care have recovered.
