Nairobi County exceeded the amount reflected in the revenue account by 36.3 per cent, while Tana River and Trans Nzoia surpassed by 26.3 and 25.5 per cent respectively.
Nairobi, Homa Bay and Trans Nzoia topped the list of counties that spent their recurrent budget irregularly in the first half 2014/15, data from the Controller of Budget (CoB) shows.
While Nairobi spent Sh2.3 billion, Homa Bay and Trans Nzoia overshot by Sh716 million and Sh282 million, respectively, without first surrendering the cash to the County Revenue Fund (CRF) as required by law.
In percentage terms, Nairobi exceeded the amount reflected in the revenue account by 36.3 per cent, while Tana River and Trans Nzoia surpassed by 26.3 and 25.5 per cent respectively.
The counties spent the cash directly after collecting it without remitting it first. Before the money leaves the CRF for spending, it is supposed to be authorised by the Controller of Budget, Agnes Odhiambo. Other counties mentioned in the list are Machakos and Murang’a for spending cash before depositing it at the CRF.
During the six-month period, six counties (Nairobi City, Homa Bay, Machakos, Murang’a, Meru and Trans Nzoia) reported higher expenditure than the amounts approved by the CoB.
‘‘The office established that these counties did not deposit all locally generated revenue into the CRF as required by Article 207 of the Constitution, but instead, spent the funds at source,” said Mrs Odhiambo.
She further said that Nairobi even spent cash for development amounting to Sh572 million, yet it did not request authority to use such funds during the first six months of the 2014/15 fiscal year.
“The Nairobi County did not request funds for development activities although they incurred development expenditure during the reporting period. This might imply that funds requested for recurrent expenditure were diverted to finance development activities or local revenue was spent at source on the development activities,” said Mrs Odhiambo.
She said her office had made recommendations on how to improve the budget implementation process within Nairobi, but they had not been taken up yet.
“The [Nairobi] County is yet to implement most of the recommendations contained in previous [Controller’s reports] and continues to experience challenges that are affecting budget implementation,” she said.
She said the challenges experienced by Nairobi not only had to do with violations of the Constitution and the PFM Act on spending, but also failure to come up with a debt management strategy.
“The challenges that hampered effective budget implementation [include] the county is yet to approve debt management strategy to manage its liabilities,” said Mrs Odhiambo.
PAYE Tax Calculator
Note: The results are not exact but very close to the actual.
