Governors revive push for vote on counties cash

Governors have reignited calls for a referendum to pressurise the National Government to allocate the devolved units more money.

The county chiefs want the allocation to go up from 15 to 40 per cent, Council of Governors chairman Isaac Ruto said on Monday.

Mr Ruto said the council would meet this week to draft a Bill on the vote.

“This is the only way the National Government will see the need to disburse more funds to devolved units for the implementation of projects,” he said.

The governor was speaking at St Catherine Catholic Church in Bomet East constituency.

He was presiding over a funds raiser for the construction of St Stephen Catholic church — Kipkurion.

Mr Ruto, who was accompanied by women representatives Cecilia Ngetich (Bomet), Beatrice Nkatha (Tharaka Nithi), Joyce Emanikor (Turkana), Bomet East MP Bernard Bett and Knut bosses Wilson Sossion (secretary general) and Mudzo Nzili (chairman), said the national government should not mislead Kenyans that it set aside more than 40 per cent of the country’s revenue to regions.

He said that for devolution to work, the government had to disburse more funds.

‘This (referendum) is the only language they understand best.”

The Bomet governor at the same time said his government would resist any attempts by the Bomet County Assembly to reduce the region’s development budget by more than Sh500 million to finance MCAs recurrent expenditure.

He said he was shocked when, on arrival from a two-week tour of the US, to learn that the County Assembly was seeking to have funds that his government had factored in for development “diverted” to MCAs.

WAR OF WORDS

The governor was reacting to issues raised by Kembu Ward representative Julius Korir who had accused the county chief of underfunding projects in his ward.

Mr Korir also claimed that Mr Ruto was denying the assembly more cash.

“My government will continue pumping more money to development programmes and at the same time drastically reduce the wage bill whether the MCAs like it or not,” he stated.

The representative had also claimed that the governor was frustrating development programmes at the assembly.

But the governor denied the claims, saying the assembly had diverted funds which were for instance, meant for the construction of washrooms at the institution to unwarranted training sessions in Kisumu Town during the last financial year.

Mr Sossion petitioned governors to use funds allocated to the counties prudently and desist from devolving corruption to regions.

This financial year, the national government has allocated Sh226 billion to county governments.