County governments have been allocated Kshs 371.6 billion in the financial year 2019/2020. In the past few weeks, Senators and Members of Parliament have been locked in a disagreement pertaining to the allocation and sharing of revenue on the Division of Revenue Bill between the national and County governments in the 2019/2020 financial year. The Senators wanted more money for the Counties, contrary to the National Assembly’s wishes.
After presenting the 2019/2020 budget estimates in parliament, Treasury CS Henry Rotich acknowledged that there had been discussions between the two houses to settle on a common figure, but no agreement had been reached. “I believe they will find a way of addressing this matter so that we can conclude soon so that Counties can be able to prepare their budgets for the next financial year,” he said. Of the Kshs 371.6 billion, Kshs 310 is the equitable share and Kshs 61.6 billion will be conditional transfers including Kshs 38.7 billion from development partners.
Furthermore, the National Treasury has established a multi-agency team to develop and implement an integrated revenue management system for County governments to deal with leakages and losses in revenue collection.