Mutava Musyimi defends House move to withdraw Sh1bn Senate allocation

The chairman of the National Assembly's Budget Committee, Mutava Musyimi, has defended the move to withdraw an intended Sh1 billion allocation to the Senate meant to facilitate the monitoring of county development projects.

He said the money did not have a proper legal framework to guide its use and thus could never have been spent for a whole financial year.

Speaking at Umau Stadium in his Mbeere South constituency at a recruitment exercise for 1,350 youth to the National Youth Service, Mr Musyimi said the Sh2 billion allocated to woman representatives last year had not been spent due to similar legal complications.

He said MPs took time to weigh the matter and adopted the mediated version of the Division of Revenue Bill before diverting the amount meant for the Senate.

"This was not about supremacy wars with the senators. Last year, we allocated Sh2 billion to (woman) representatives but the money was not spent because there (were no) legal guidelines on its usage.

"Similarly, we felt that if we give the money to the senators, by the time proper legal regulations on the funds usage are enacted, the money would just be lying unused," said Mr Musyimi.

CONDITIONAL GRANT

He explained that the amount was meant to bridge a gap of an extra Sh3.3 billion conditional grant to the counties that the senators had proposed.

Mr Musyimi clarified that lawmakers had reallocated money from other arms of government.

"We also reallocated Sh800 million from the Judiciary because in the previous year they hadn’t spent 40 per cent of money allocated to them. We had to come up with ways to raise money to bridge the deficit,” said Mr Musyimi.

The MPs also slashed the budgetary allocation to the Salaries and Remuneration Commission by Sh200 million to get the extra money for counties, which is meant to cater for the funding of Level Five hospitals and the counties’ human resources.