Counties reject Sh20 billion capacity building funds from World Bank

Council of Governors Chairman Peter Munya

County governments have rejected a Sh20 billion Word Bank funding on grounds that the Devolution principal secretary will oversee its spending.

Instead, the Council of Governors said it will only take part in the Kenya Devolution Support programme if its modalities of engagement are revised.

The council's Chairman Peter Munya said counties are not departments of the national government ministries to be supervised by the ministries, adding that giving the ministry supervisory role over the devolved structures was against the Constitution.

The proposed World Bank funding for the programme is to supplement existing national capacity building framework resources.

"The main reason for our rejection of this programme is because, the project document provides for supervisory role of the Ministry of Devolution," said Mr Munya in a statement.

Consequently, the council has cancelled a training for county officials on the programme by the National Treasury, Ministry of Devolution and the World Bank slated for today.

Munya said while the programme was welcomed, they are rejecting it in its current form until the engaging documents is restructured.

The governors also accused the Ministry of Health of subordination and claimed that it had channeled vaccination funds to personal accounts of State officers instead of the constitutionally provided channels.

They asked Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission to investigate the matter before the monies are lost.