This archive report was first published on 23 August 2019.
On June 30, the 2018/19 financial year came to a close, but the National Treasury had not disbursed Sh10 billion to the 47 county governments. In a statement, Principal Secretary Julius Muia explained that the cash was not released because the devolved units failed to meet several conditions.
According to Muia, the counties received Sh360.1 billion, representing 96 per cent of the County Allocation of Revenue Act (CARA), 2018 allocations. However, they missed out on Sh10 billion due to various reasons, including a delay by the Ministry of Water officials to prepare documents for conditional grants.
As a result, counties lost Sh3.8 billion for the Water and Sanitation Development Project and another Sh880 million for the Water Tower Protection, Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Programme. Muia blamed the failure of accounting officers of some ministries to submit written instructions in time to the National Treasury for the failure to release payments.
"The need for written instructions is stipulated in the Guidelines for the Management of Intergovernmental Fiscal Transfers (2017),” Muia said.
Other funds that the counties were allocated but never received included Sh2.3 billion from the World Bank as part of the four-year, Sh20 billion Kenya Devolution Support Programme (KDSP).
