Are Counties Getting Enough Money?? Public Forum on Division of Revenue Bill 2013

Post date: Thu, Jun 6, 2013
Category: General
By: Otiato Guguyu,

The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA – Kenya) found it important to hold a public forum on the Division of Revenue Bill 2013 today (5th June 2013), to ensure public participation, and to raise concerns over aspects of the DoR Bill at the Sarova Stanley Hotel.

This came in the wake of conflicting information in the public and the media on how much money is available for the counties. There has also been growing concern about the capacity of county governments to deliver on their functions, previously a duty of the national government.IEA sought to establish the viability of transferring these functions at a go, if this would necessitate a legislative change as well as who would bear a shortfall in revenue given that it is very likely.

Speaking at the forum, Senate Finance committee chair Hon. Billow Kerrow, explained that the Senate struck out a provision which stated that a shortfall in revenue be shared among counties, but retained a clause which ensured that an excess will be shared. He added that the Senate had raised the budgetary allocation to 238bn which was still insufficient, dwarfed by the national budget of 1.6 trillion.

Hon. Kerrow pointed out that this would only be sufficient to run the services offered by the counties and misses the point of devolution which sought to enable counties finance development.

He reiterated the concern of the low capacity of county governments to deliver, citing that some were still appointing executive councils to date but held that it was necessary to transfer functions, because allowing the treasury to withhold funds would set a bad precedence.

Mr. Albert Mwenda, an Economist at the Treasury pointed out that the constitution provided for the gray areas in implementation of the one phase transfer of functions, adding that if functions are not clear or if the county is unable to offer the services, then the national government would provide the same.

Mr. Mwenda averred that there has been a rapid assessment of all counties which was being reviewed. The assessments would enable the Transitional Authority (TA) to assess the capacities of counties to deliver on specific functions and those lacking capacities would revert the functions to the national government.

IEA Chief Executive, Kwame Owino urged the public to be vigilant in tracking the bill as they moved through the houses to seek clarifications on pertinent issues in policies.

By Otiato Guguyu, Intern – PR and Communication Department.

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