State accused of reducing county funds for 2014/15

Governors have accused the government of reducing cash for counties in the next financial year.

They claimed that the amount had been reduced from Sh239 billion, proposed by the Commission on Revenue Allocation, to Sh217 billion.

Council of Governors chairman Isaac Ruto said the figure had been agreed upon by the Intergovernmental Budget and Economic Council and asked why the Jubilee administration had gone ahead to reduce the figure without consultation.

“If the Jubilee Government is out to undermine the gains of devolution through reduced funding to the counties. The council will definitely invite a referendum to put things in order,” Mr Ruto said.

The Bomet governor said his council had raised the matter with the Deputy President William Ruto.

He accused MPs of being the stumbling block to the release of more funds to the counties. (READ: Ruto’s team still intent on referendum)

He was speaking at Kapkesosio where the National Youth Service team is drilling a borehole that will supply clean water to residents of Nyangores ward in Sigor division.

CLEAN DRINKING WATER

He disclosed that in the next three months, at least 20 such boreholes would been drilled across the county and that at the end of his five-year term, residents and their learning and health institutions would have access to clean drinking water.

The governor said that four boreholes had been drilled at a cost of Sh4 million.

Mr Ruto, who was accompanied by the county executive for Water, Mr Joseph Sigi Langat, called on maize farmers to go for alternative crops following the resurgence of the lethal maize disease that had destroyed plantations in the county.

WAGE BILL

On the wage bill, he dismissed as “unacceptable “ the proposal by President Kenyatta to have allowances for politicians and public servants reduced to ease the burden.

The governor said the President and his deputy, Mr William Ruto, were ill-advised and petitioned the Jubilee administration to devise better ways of growing its economy by double digits and not through the reduction of salaries.

“Among the pre-election promises ahead of the last General Election by Jubilee was creation of jobs. What is this business of threatening some of its workers with the sack if they are not willing to have their salaries reduced? he asked.

At Kapkesosio dispensary, the governor called on the government to put in place measures that would check all avenues of corruption instead subjecting its workers to financial quagmires through salary cuts.

He challenged the government to put in place realistic structural adjustment programmes that could sustain the economy instead of looking for short cuts which in the long run would be “suicidal.”

RESIST PAY CUT

Separately, area Kenya National Union of Teachers executive secretary Joseph Malel Langat said teachers would resist any attempts by the government to slash their pay.

He said it was foolhardy for the Jubilee administration to think of reducing teachers’ salaries when in the first place it was yet to implement the remaining phases of the their pay rise.

Mr Langat stated that teachers would be left with no alternative but to go on strike should the government go ahead and reduce their salaries.