Editorials

EDITORIAL: Counties must rein in recurrent expenditure

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While governors have been consistent in justifying the hiring, data from the Controller of Budget’s office now show the recruitment is taking place at the expense of development. FILE PHOTO | NMG

Over the past five years of their existence, the county governments have covertly been turned into employers of last resort that regularly take in manpower of debatable quality.

While governors have been consistent in justifying the hiring, data from the Controller of Budget’s office now show the recruitment is taking place at the expense of development.

Ideally, increased employment is a good thing if its purpose is to stimulate growth through taking on board the right people. But when recurrent expenditure occupies too much fiscal space, there emerges a structural problem that often takes years — and the largely non-existent political will — to resolve.

Worse still, it has been reported that 14 of the units spent nothing on development in the last six months of 2017.

Perhaps the counties might argue that the situation is no different in the ranks of the National Government.

Latest statistics show that the devolved units for the first time managed to spend over 70 per cent of the cash, mostly from the Treasury, on salaries and the now infamous allowances in the six months to December last year. The wage bill rose to Sh66.4 billion from Sh61.8 billion in a year when economic growth slowed down significantly.

The collective amount has risen from Sh19.6 billion, perhaps in part because a lot of people have been seconded from the central government.

But the inherited workers notwithstanding, counties have engaged in wanton spending on labour and it has become imperative that they contain the spending on staff to sustainable levels and in line with Public Finance Management. What confuses a casual observer is the fact that some poor and purely rural counties like Tharaka-Nithi used 94 per cent of total expenditure on wage bill.

This is a county that did not inherit massive establishment from former municipal and town councils that already had a lot of functions. Meru is also on the list with a lower 92 per cent.

Unless these and other counties align their recurrent expenditure with the development needs, their people are likely to suffer for a long time to come. Time is not on their side.