Kilifi assembly approves Sh13 billion budget

Kilifi County Assembly has passed a Sh13 billion budget estimate for financial year 2018/19, up from last year’s Sh11.99 billion.

Speaker Jimmy Kahindi approved the budget on Thursday after the House unanimously adopted the report last Monday to amend the proposed budget.

The committee chairman Albert Kiraga told the House that the Budget and Appropriation Committee allocated Sh12 billion to the executive and Sh1 billion to the county assembly.

“The total budget projection has increased to Sh13 billion compared to the last financial year’s budget of Sh11 billion due to the increased equitable share of revenue raised nationally from Sh9.9 to Sh10.8 billion,” he said.

PROCUREMENT

Speaking to the press, the Speaker said they adopted the report after the executive failed to consider public opinion on the proposed budget and matters of development.

“During the public hearing, residents wanted the entire budget for the procurement of the deputy governor’s residence be done away with but as a committee we opted to reduce the amount to meet the national government directive,” he said.

According to the report of the Budget and Appropriation Committee, the procurement for construction of deputy governor’s house was slashed from Sh214 million to Sh114 million despite the public call to scrap the allocation entirely.

Mr Kiraga said the committee also scraped funds allocated for establishing a county radio station at Sh17 million to cater for development issues.

SH1.3 BILLION

He said the committee report also reinstated funding for stalled projects that the executive had sidelined and allocated Sh508 million to complete them instead of starting new ones.

“The committee report also projects a Sh1.3 billion local revenue collection, up from Sh926 million for last year, and recommends the executive to explore ways of increasing its revenue collection that also includes automated system,” he added.

The committee report estimates that the recurrent expenditure stands at Sh8 billion, development expenditure Sh5.6 billion, while cash transfers to the elderly, orphans and vulnerable children is Sh35 million.

Sh350 million has been budgeted for ward scholarship fund and Sh30 million for Mbegu Fund, while the Kenya Urban Support Programme slashed from Sh330 to Sh205 million to be distributed in Malindi and Kilifi municipalities.