By ROBERT WANYONYI
Bungoma Governor Kenneth Lusaka has faulted a report by the Controller of Budget that named his county as among those that had spent more cash on personal emoluments.
Mr Lusaka said the county had not received development funds at the time the report was prepared between July and August last year.
The governor explained that all projects undertaken by the county government were funded from recurrent expenditure.
“We launched a roads rehabilitation programme last week. This will cover all major roads in the nine constituencies of the county. We have just started our development agenda,” explained Lusaka.
The report showed that in the first three months of the 2013/2014 financial year, counties splashed billions on recurrent expenditure that included local and foreign travel, hospitality and training.
On Wednesday, the Council of Governors dismissed the report terming it out of context. Council chairman Bomet Governor Isaac Ruto said the low absorption of development funds was because of bureaucracy involved in the tendering of Government projects.
According to the report, expenses on domestic travel amounted to Sh1.1 billion, conference and hospitality Sh241.9 million, with training taking Sh161.2 million from July to September. Ruto noted that Treasury had no authority to incur development expenditure since the Controller of Budget had frozen development funds for counties following the strike by county assemblies members. Governors James Ongwae (Kisii) and Jack Ranguma (Kisumu) said it was hypocritical of the Controller of Budget to release misleading figures on expenditure when counties started receiving money for development in September.
