Why your county is not developing as fast as expected

Machakos Governor Alfred Mutua tries out a tractor his county government bought recently. FILE PHOTO |

What you need to know:

  • In total, the counties spent Sh6.3 billion on vehicles.
  • The report does not state the type of vehicles bought.

Most counties spent substantial budgetary allocations on buying vehicles in the first year of devolution.

The counties spent Sh36.6 billion on development, a paltry 21.6 per cent of their Sh169.4 billion total expenditure, according to the annual report on the implementation of the budget released by Controller of Budget Agnes Odhiambo on Monday.

Machakos County, headed by Dr Alfred Mutua, had the highest spending on vehicles having used a whopping Sh863 million.

Dr Evans Kidero’s Nairobi County was the second highest spender, having used Sh367 million on vehicles.

The report does not state the type of vehicles bought, meaning they may range from those used by the governor and other employees, to the utility ones such as ambulances and police cars.

In total, the counties spent Sh6.3 billion on vehicles. The cumulative budget on car for all counties was Sh8.4 billion, the report says.

However, Machakos was also the highest spender on development of the 47 counties, having pumped in Sh2.7 billion.

Other big spenders on development were Wajir at Sh2.6 billion and Turkana at Sh1.9 billion.

Machakos is among eight counties whose expenditure on vehicles exceeded their budgetary allocations.

The others are Tana River (Sh76.1 million), Kericho (Sh84.5 million), Kajiado (Sh21.5 million), Trans Nzoia (Sh68 million), Homa Bay (Sh155.3 million), West Pokot (Sh205 million) and Samburu (Sh122.5 million).

Elgeyo Marakwet (Sh6.4 million), Murang’a (Sh21.2 million) and Busia (Sh22.8 million) spent the least amount on vehicles.

MANUAL TRANSACTIONS

Mrs Odhiambo is critical of some counties, which did not fully adopt the Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS).

“Transactions involving large amounts of money were processed manually, contrary to requirements of the National Treasury,” she says.

“Failure to use IFMIS resulted in overdrawing which became apparent when manual transactions were finally uploaded. It also affected efficiency and accuracy in reporting,” Mrs Odhiambo said.

Tana River’s development expenditure was the least at Sh32.2 million. Kisumu’s was Sh98.9 million and Mombasa’s Sh107.9 million.

Wajir, Turkana and Bomet are reported to have had the highest proportion of their total expenditure on development at 57.8 per cent, 56.5 per cent and 48.4 per cent respectively.

Mombasa, Kisumu and Tana River had the lowest expenditure on development against that on recurrent expenses at 2.1 per cent, 2.2 per cent and 2.4 per cent respectively.

Bomet, Wajir and Trans Nzoia counties spent much of the money they had budgeted for development projects with absorption rates of 92.4 per cent, 78.2 per cent and 74 per cent respectively.

Mombasa led the counties that were unable to spend the money they had allocated to development and could only manage to use 2.4 per cent of their development money.

Tana River and Kisumu were in the same league as they only spent 2.7 per cent and four per cent of their development budgets respectively.

“I hope as county governments usher the second year of devolution, more focus will be placed on development,” Mrs Odhiambo said.