The committee, chaired by Gachoka MP Mutava Musyimi also recommended that the allocations to the regional hospitals be administered by the national government instead of counties as was the case last year.
A parliamentary mediation committee recently appointed to find common ground on the Division of Revenue Bill 2014 has cut allocations to Level 5 hospitals to Sh1.87 billion, down from Sh3.4 billion allocated in the last financial year.
The committee, chaired by Gachoka MP Mutava Musyimi also recommended that the allocations to the regional hospitals be administered by the national government instead of counties as was the case last year.
The team, comprising MPs and the Senate, however, maintained Sh226.66 billion as the total allocation to the 47 county governments despite slashing funds to Level 5 hospitals. The national government will receive Sh799.65 billion.
“The committee observed that Level 5 hospitals are not provided for explicitly in the Constitution and hence the need to find mechanism of dealing with the matter in future to enable the Level 5 hospitals’ ability to function appropriately,” said the committee in its report that was tabled last evening.
The deal between the National Assembly and the Senate now paves the way for the enactment of the Bill, which shares revenue raised nationally between the two levels of government.
In the last financial year, counties were allocated Sh210 billion out of which Sh190 billion was shared equally, Sh3.4 billion to Level 5 hospitals and Sh16.6 billion as conditional grants.
In the current financial year 2014/15, the National Assembly approved the Treasury’s proposal to allocate Sh226.6 as a block figure comprising equitable share, village polytechnics (Sh1.4 billion), Level 5 (Sh3.4 billion) and Rural Electrification Authority (Sh3.5 billion).
The Senate rejected the MPs’ proposals and demanded amendments to clause 4 of the Bill to provide for adequate funding for all Level 5 hospitals through allocation to the functions from the national government as opposed to county government.
Senators also sought to amend the schedule of the Bill to alter the stipulation that the allocation to counties is 43 per cent of the most audited and approved revenue by the National Assembly (2009/10) of Sh529.3 billion to simply read that the allocation due to counties supersedes the minimum threshold of 15 per cent of revenue collected by the government as stipulated under Article 203(2) of the Constitution.
The Senate argued that Level 5 hospitals would be unfairly disadvantaged as they would be forced to put in an extra amount of their equitable share to run the health facilities which provides services to nearby counties.
The National Assembly rejected Senate’s amendments leading to the formation of a mediation committee to come up with an agreeable version of the Bill.
In its recommendations, the mediation team observed that there is an urgent need for the Health committees of both Houses of Parliament to work together in consultation with other stakeholders to address issues of Level 5 hospitals and conduct actual costing of running each of the level 5 hospitals.
“All matters were agreed by consensus and therefore the report was unanimously adopted by the members of the committee,” the report states.
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