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Devolved units to receive shareable revenue from next week

Thursday, February 4th, 2021 00:00 | By
Treasury Cabinet secretary Ukur Yattani. Photo/File

Lewis Njoka @LewisNjoka

The government will begin disbursing the December allocation of the shareable equitable revenue to counties beginning next week, Treasury has said.

This comes as a huge relief to the devolved units many of which have complained of being cash strapped in the recent past.

“We are up to date up to November. December, we are going to start giving out next week, hopefully towards the end of next week,” said National Treasury Cabinet Secretary, Ukur Yatani.

“We transferred over Sh25 billion last week to the counties and we are confident that service delivery, including the payment of salaries, has not been hampered in any way,” he added.

He said starting next week, Treasury will prioritize the share for the month of December and clear that January in due course.

However, Yatani lamented the failure by some counties to absorb the money allocated to them saying Treasury will give priority to counties that have utilised their allocation when disbursing funds in future.

According to the CS, some 15 counties are yet to spend Sh130 billion allocated to them currently lying idle in the Central Bank of Kenya.

“We are going to give those counties priority for the months of December and January.

Counties that are fast-moving and are spending their resources, we are going to give them first priority,” Yatani said.

He said some counties have been unable to utilise resources given to them months ago with some holding over Sh3 billion in their accounts and yet they keep on asking for additional resources.

“It is within the responsibility of the National Treasury to ensure that we enforce the practice of good financial management telling them to spend the money because sitting in their accounts is not enough. They must be utilized for the intended purpose,” he said.

Yatani was speaking in Nairobi when he met Devolution CS, Eugene Wamalwa, and Council of Governors chair, Martin Wambora, in his office.

Speaking at the same event, Wambora said he will assist specific counties to deal with health workers strikes despite the council policy that each county handles its own workers issues.

“Before the end of this month, this issue of strikes will be over. That’s my intention and it will happen,” Wambora said.

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