Allocation to counties in the five months to November rose 13.7 per cent to 74.4 billion in an upturn after surviving the first two months of the financial year without a coin.
The Sh74.4 billion is an increase from the Sh65.4 billion the 47 counties received in the same period a year earlier and comes in a period when tax collection rose by Sh47 billion.
In the two months to August, Treasury had not allocated a single coin to the 47 county governments, hitting hard operations of the devolved units and their suppliers.
Delayed exchequer releases coupled with poor own-revenue collections have seen counties struggle to meet their financial obligations in good time, leading to an increase in pending bills.
As of June 30, 2018, pending bills in county governments had accumulated to Sh108.41 billion, with Controller of Budget Agnes Odhiambo attributing this partly to the delayed disbursements by the National Treasury.
Delayed dispatch of funds has led to projects stalling, delayed workers’ salaries and frozen payments to suppliers, slowing down operations in the regional governments.
The Constitution requires the National Treasury to disburse counties’ share of revenue by the 15th date of every month.
Nairobi got the lion’s share of Sh3.3 billion, followed by Kiambu (Sh2.9 billion), Kitui (Sh2.7 billion) and Mombasa (Sh2.5 billion).
Lamu received the least (Sh807 million) followed by Isiolo and Kirinyaga at Sh874 million and Sh876 million respectively.
Total allocation to the counties in the current financial year stands at Sh345.6 billion, which consists of the equitable share of national government revenue of Sh304 billion.
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Note: The results are not exact but very close to the actual.
