Julius Muia, the Treasury PS told the committee that disbursements of the Sh4.98 billion will be done after completing the payment of the NG-CDF allocation for the current financial year in mid-April.
The total allocation to CDF in this financial year is Sh41.7 billion but the Treasury was yet to release a balance of Sh18 billion as at February 17, 2022.
The Treasury has been disbursing Sh2 billion to constituencies weekly for CDF allocations for the 2021/22 financial year.
Members of Parliament have allocated themselves Sh4.98 billion in the mini-budget to finance Constituency Development projects ahead of the dissolution of the current Parliament in June.
This is after the Finance and National Planning Committee reallocated the Treasury’s vote as contained in the Supplementary budget to secure the arrears that have been due to the National Government Constituencies Development Fund (NG-CDF) for a decade.
“The committee recommends the following reallocations, NG-CDF: addition of Sh4,976,500,000,” the committee said in a report on the scrutiny of the Supplementary Budget I for the financial year 2021/22.
“The Principal Secretary (PS) informed the committee that the NG-CDF arrears for the financial years 2011/12, 2013/14 and 2014/15 will be factored in Supplementary Estimates No. 1 of 2021/22,” a report of the committee shows.
Julius Muia, the Treasury PS told the committee that disbursements of the Sh4.98 billion will be done after completing the payment of the NG-CDF allocation for the current financial year in mid-April.
The total allocation to CDF in this financial year is Sh41.7 billion but the Treasury was yet to release a balance of Sh18 billion as at February 17, 2022.
The Treasury has been disbursing Sh2 billion to constituencies weekly for CDF allocations for the 2021/22 financial year.
“The balance as at February 17, 2022, was Sh18 billion which will be cleared by mid-April,” Dr Muia told the Gladys Wanga-led committee.
The delay in disbursing money to constituencies has created friction with MPs accusing the Treasury of sabotaging projects and educational scholarship.
MPs have previously lamented that failure by the Treasury to release cash meant for the 290 constituencies had stalled planned projects.
“The total allocation to CDF in this financial year is Sh41.714 billion but none has been released two months in the financial year,” Wafula Wamunyinyi who chairs the NG-CDF committee told MPs last year.
The NG-CDF Act, 2015 sets aside 2.5 percent of the total revenue raised nationally to be shared among the constituencies.
Out of the CDF budget of Sh41.7 billion, each of the 290 constituencies has been allocated Sh137 million for development in the year to June 2022.
“The NG-CDF committee has previously tussled with the Treasury following failure to release cash to the constituencies.
This led the Treasury to enter into a pact with MPs to be releasing Sh2 billion weekly to the NG-CDF, an agreement that the Treasury has continued to honour.
