Counties’ failure to spend without approval praised

The failure by counties to spend Sh27 billion allocated to them has been described as the single greatest success of devolution.

Of the 47 county governments, 27 failed to spend cash on development and did not request any for projects, according to a Controller of Budget report for the first quarter of the financial year 2013/14.

The International Budget Partnership Team (IBP) on Thursday said it was not a bad thing for counties not to spend the money.

“It shows success,” IBP Team Kenya coordinator Jason Lakin said.

Speaking in Nyeri on the sidelines of a training workshop on devolution for journalists in central region, Dr Lakin said most counties had to revise their budgets and they were given until September 1, 2013 to do it.

NO AUTHORITY, NO SPENDING

He said most of them had not done so by the end of first quarter. “So what happened is that counties in the first quarter did not have approved budgets,” he said.

He said as a result, they did not have authority to spend money.

“What usually happens in Kenya is that people spend money without budgeting. People are used to spending money with impunity. So what happened in the first quarter of devolution is that counties were prevented from spending money without approved budgets, and that is a success,” Dr Lakin said.

He said Kenyans created the Controller of Budget Office to prevent the national and county governments from spending outside the law, “and that’s exactly what is happening”.