CRA accuses Treasury of frustrating devolution

The chairman of the Commission on Revenue Allocation Micah Cheserem. CRA has said Treasury is out to scuttle the devolution of power and resources to county governments January 8, 2013. FILE

The Treasury is out to scuttle the devolution of power and resources to county governments, the Commission on Revenue Allocation (CRA) has said.

Speaking at a meeting with the House Budget Committee, which was also attended by Finance minister Njeru Githae and his technocrats, CRA chairman Micah Cheserem said the Treasury had failed to take on board a formula approved by Parliament in making allocations to each of the 47 counties.

“If the Treasury behaves the way it is behaving now, we’ll not have county governments,” Mr Cheserem told the MPs on Tuesday.

He said Mr Githae “was not an accountant” and was therefore at the mercy of the mandarins at the Treasury who had often “misled him” on the devolution of resources.  Mr Cheserem added that the Treasury often “lectures” the CRA on how to do its job.

Mr Cheserem told Mr Githae to his face that he had not used the formula on revenue sharing to allocate money to the specific counties. He said all the counties should be allocated Sh30 billion to do their jobs. The Sh6.8 billion that the Treasury had allocated, Mr Cheserem said, and MPs agreed, had no basis in law.

“The danger is that if we don’t do this well, we’ll have lots of contestations when the governors come into office,” said Mr Cheserem.

"It is not true that the minister has used the formula. He has not! We told the Treasury that they have to apply the formula, and allocate Sh30 billion to the counties as a minimum for the last four months of the financial year. If that doesn’t happen, wait for a crisis,” the CRA chairman said.

Mr Githae said the Treasury had settled on the Sh6.8 billion “on the advice of the Transitional Authority”.

But an officer from the Transitional Authority, who had attended the meeting, later said the authority had not given the Treasury any figures. The committee, however, refused to accommodate the sentiments of the officer, because the Transitional Authority had not been invited to the meeting.

Skip meetings

The told the minister that he had skipped three meetings to discuss the Bills on devolution a week ago.

“We’ve got a feeling that if you had your way, you’d not have had a meeting with us to discuss these Bills,” said Elias Mbau, the chairman of the Budget Committee.

The legislators said they saw mischief in the way the Treasury had handled the issue on devolution.

“Those of us with a political background know that devolution was killed at independence, when the Senate was killed. So we look at any move by the Treasury that is likely to scuttle the process, as suspect,” said Ekwee Ethuro (Turkana Central).

But Mr Githae defended the Treasury. He said he was committed to making sure that the devolution succeeds as envisaged in the Constitution.

"Sometimes, we may not do what is ideal because of other considerations, such as inadequate time,” said the Finance minister.

"We’ve not short changed any county."