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Governors protest Sh7b cut in grants

Tuesday, November 15th, 2022 06:50 | By
Council of Governors chair Anne Waiguru and committee chairpersons in Mombasa on September 17, 2022. Photo: Courtesy.

The Council of Governors (CoG) wants the National Treasury to explain why it has slashed Sh7 billion grants for counties.

They questioned the rationale of reducing the allocation contained in the original county government additional allocation bill.

The bill allocates various conditional and unconditional grants to the devolved units.

When he appeared before the Senate’s Budget and Finance Committee chaired by Mandera Senator Ali Roba (pictured) yesterday, CoG vice chair Ahmed Abdullahi (Wajir) and the Council’s Finance committee chairman Fernandes Barasa (Kakamega) said there was a variance between the original bill and the re-introduced bill currently before the House.

“There is a total of about Sh7 billion reduction between what was agreed in the financing agreement and what the bill proposes. The Treasury has not given us a valid explanation for that reduction,” said Abdullahi.

New bill

This is the second time the bill has been introduced in the Senate after a similar bill collapsed in the 12th Parliament. The previous bill had Sh31.88 billion allocated to the counties from loans and grants from development partners.

However, in the new bill, which, will come for second reading today, Sh23.70 billion from loans and development partners have been allocated.

“We are asking why this allocation been reduced in the new Bill. The more than Sh7 billion that has been slashed is material and will affect the implementation of programmes and projects,” said Abdullahi.

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