Treasury assures counties of July pay

SUMMARY

• Council of Governors Finance Committee Chairman Oparanya says county workers may miss July pay due to IFMIS related challenges
• Oparanya says 2017/2018 financial year sharable funds have not been disbursed
• Treasury PS Kamau Thugge says counties have upto Sh25b unspent therefore salaries will be paid

NAIROBI, KENYA: Treasury Principal Secretary Dr Kamau Thugge on Wednesday said counties should not worry about salaries as Treasury has already disbursed money to a few counties who indicated that they were strained.

Dr Thugge who was responding to the Council of Governors claims that workers in counties risk missing their July pay because of the delay by both the Senate and National Assembly in passing two crucial bills and failure to upload funds on IFMIS said counties that have problems liaise with his office for assistance.

"The senate broke up for elections before approving the schedule that allows us to disburse money to counties. Nevertheless there is nothing to worry about because counties have between Sh20b and Sh25billion in their account that is unspent," said Dr Thugge in a phone interview.

"County employees therefore need not to worry about their July salaries because counties have more than Sh20billion in their accounts unspent."

Council of Governors Finance Committee chairman Governor Wycliffe Oparanya warned that a number of counties would not be able to pay July salaries.

He claimed the delay to disburse the total allocation of Sh341 million to 47 counties consisting of Sh302 billions of equitable share of national government revenue, Sh23 billion in conditional grants from the national government and a further Sh16.4 billion in conditional allocations from loans and grants from development partners has affected cash flows in the counties.

"The 2017/2018 financial year sharable funds have not been disbursed. This implies some of the workers in the counties will go without pay as we head to the August 8th polls," said Kakamega Governor Oparanya.

"The earlier period in which money can be released to the Counties is may be September 2017. By then there are pending bills from the previous financial year waiting to be paid among other commitments."

Oparanya also cited the IFMIS system as a challenge saying the system has not been effective as it was meant to.

"IFMIS is another challenge. We want the National government to do away with the system because it is part of the reasons for failure to disburse funds on time."

But Thugge in his reply said money which counties returned to CBK at the end of the last financial year be used to pay salaries as they wait for the other disbursements.

"Since counties have no debts to pay, salaries should be the first recurrent expenditure. Therefore instead of that money being returned to the national Treasury, counties should use the money to pay salaries," Dr Thugge said.