The travel and accommodation vote for Kakamega Governor Wycliffe Oparanya’s office has been increased by Sh13 million, according to a supplementary budget approved by the County Assembly.
The decision to increase the vote is attributed to additional departments operating under the office of the county chief.
But the report on expenditure for the vote indicates that Sh17 million out of the budgeted Sh24 million had been spent by end of December 2018. The county representatives passed the budget last Friday. Also, Sh10 million meant for office repairs has been transferred from the recurrent to development vote.
The report indicates that the cumulative cost of the governor’s official residence in Likuyani is Sh66.6 million and the county has so far spent Sh46 million on the project which is 80 per cent complete. Out of the Sh20 million balance for the project, Sh10 million will go into landscaping of the residence.
Construction of a second residence for the governor has been planned for in Lurambi and Sh26 million allocated to start off the project.
The Ministry for Transport received Sh354 million in the revised estimates while the Labour and Social Services ministry had its development budget slashed by 296 million.
The county government gave reasons for the budget cut as the need to re-allocate the funds towards completing construction of three bitumen roads.
But in his report, chairman of the budget and appropriations committee Willis Opuka questioned why the entire budget for the financial year 2018/19 had been revised across all ministries.
“This raises concern as to why revisions were being done across the board yet some ministries such as Health Services, Agriculture, Social Services among others did not spend any funds under the development agenda in the first quarter,” the report says.
In the revised budget, the recurrent expenditure will go up by Sh 359.1 million while the development expenditure will decrease by Sh 377.4 million.
The county treasury has been faulted for introducing new projects leading to the revised estimates.
One such project is the construction of the Sabatia bus park in Butere sub-county.
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