Kes. 4b for projects funding while
Kes. 10b will be used for expenses
By Queen Mutindi
The Machakos County Government is set to gobble 71.4 percent of its Kes. 14bn budget for 2024/2025 on recurrent expenditure.
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| Mr Kuyu |
In what is out rightly an affront to the Public Finance Management Act(PFMA), Finance Minister Mr. Onesmus Kuyu presented his budget to the Machakos County Assembly and had the audacity to state in his notes that the budget was within the dictates of the PFMA that stipulates that the budget’s development expenditure must not run below 35 percent.
Kuyu inaccurately states in notes to the budget that 30 percent of the budget had been allocated to development expenditure, yet, indeed, out of the Kes 14,392,185,634 billion, Kes 10,067,055,062billion will go to recurrent expenditure. Unfortunately, no one in the assembly noted the glaring declaration and as usual, the budget was passed, asserting the sorry state of governance in Kenya that has triggered a revolution by Gen Z Kenyans who feel the country is headed in the wrong direction.
It raises serious questions over the role of the assembly in oversighting the executive arm of government although, like at the national scene where Members of Parliament are bribed to pass illegal laws, MCAs too, are usually bribed to pass legislation in the counties.
How else does one justify the passing of a budget that leaves only Kes 4, 325,130,572 for development, yet it is highly likely that much of the money contains budgeted corruption and a large sum of it may be stolen by county mandarins who run county programs under Governor Wavinya Ndeti’s Chakula Mezani, Pesa Mfukoni mantra. It is therefore unlikely that the people of Machakos will realize meaningful change in the way they live.
The budget is prepared in the background of dwindling revenue for the county with projections indicating that Machakos had collected only Kes 1,051,979,26 b by June 2024. While the county projects to realize Kes 3b from Own Source Revenues to fund the budget, it remains to be seen if the projections will work, save for the projected Kes 9.5b from Equitable Share of revenue from the national government.
What makes the revenue generation a herculean task is the low figures reported from key sectors where the county is projecting to rake in funds is from as at the close of the first half of the financial year. The sectors are Building Plans Approvals (Kes 44,107,496m), Mavoko Quarries ( Kes 37,022,921m), Land Rates (Kes 35,612,844m), Bus Park( Kes 35,139,630m) and Small Business Permits(Kes 24,252,600m).
Details in the budget show that within the Kes 10 b expenditure plan, Wavinya’s office will gobble Kes 857,175,828m for recurrent expenditure up from Kes 580m in the just ended year while Kes 59,830,059m will be available for development funding, up from Kes 19m last year. The Anchor was unable to verify how the governor will use the nearly Kes 60m.
The Anchor has published excerpts of the budget in this article.
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