This archive report was first published on 1 July 2020.
Published on July 1, 2020, Kirinyaga Governor Anne Waiguru has accused the County Assembly of arm-twisting county executives to settle their scores using the 2020-2021 budget for selfish gains.
Waiguru stated that the MCAs disregarded the law instead of putting the interests of residents first, terming their actions as 'selfish'.
The governor insisted that the MCAs have no powers to arbitrarily amend the budget, citing the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) 2012, which limits expenditures by the County Assembly to lower than twice the amount of personal emoluments or 7% of total revenues of the county government.
According to Waiguru, the County Assembly has allocated itself Ksh. 569million, which is Ksh. 200million more than the allocated amount, in total disregard of the PFMA.
The governor also stated that Regulation 37(1) of the PFM (County Government) Regulations 2015 limits the County Assembly variations on budget votes to 1% of the ceilings, and therefore, the MCAs have no powers to arbitrarily remove funds from one vote to another.
Waiguru further accused the assembly of illegally assigning itself the role of developing a County Appropriation bill, which is the role of the County Executive Committee Member (CECM) of Finance.
She maintained that the executive followed all the requirements in the budget making process, which included wide consultations with the assembly and members of public through various public participation forums.
Chairman of the budget committee David Mathenge responded to the Governor, stating that they followed the act from the office of the controller of budget under article 228 of the Constitution to oversee and report on implementation of the budgets of both the national and county governments to each house of parliament every four months.
