Revenue Bill passed, Senate blames MPs for reduced county allocation

By MOSES NJAGIH

Senators burnt the midnight oil on Thursday to pass the Division of Revenue Bill, despite protests from some of them that the Sh226.66 billion was little compared to what was being retained at the national level.

The division of the revenue was based on the 2009/2010 budget of Sh529 billion, which are the “last audited accounts approved by Parliament”.

The Constitution requires that the allocation to counties must not be less than 15 per cent of the last audited accounts approved by Parliament.

The senators accused their counterparts in the National Assembly for failing to approve the audited accounts, despite the prompt auditing by the Auditor General, leading to the low percentage.

As a result, the national government will retain Sh799 billion of the Sh1.026 trillion, which is the expected revenue in the next financial year.

 “The 43 per cent that we are claiming is what we are taking to counties is deceptive. If we are sincerely talking of that per cent in relation to the actual figures of over a trillion that we are dividing, we would be giving counties in excess of Sh300 billion,” argued Baringo Senator Gideon Moi in his contributions.

Gideon said after going through the technical aspects of allocations, the Commission on Revenue Allocation had recommended that Sh279 billion be sent to counties “which we thought was good for this time”.

“After consultations with the Executive we accepted, though with a heavy heart, to have the figures to counties reduced to Sh238 billion. It is sad that the figure further came down to Sh226 billion,” said the Baringo Senator, urging the House to amend the figures to Sh238 billion.

“We should increase the figures and send the Bill back to the National Assembly,” he said.

CORD Senators Moses Wetangula, James Orengo and Johnstone Muthama argued it was wrong to base the divisions on the accounts of 2009/2010, when last years allocation were based on the figures of 2010/2011.

Senator Moi further lobbied for the revisiting of the formula used to determine allocations to counties, saying the same was not fair, even as he further called for a new census to determine the true population per county.

But Finance Committee chairman Mandera Senator Billow Kerrow said last year’s allocations were done on a wrong premise as the figures for 2010/2011 had not been approved by Parliament, though they had been audited.

The legislators were recalled from their recess for the special session.