Nakuru to spend over half its Sh18 billion budget on recurrent expenditure

Nakuru Governor Lee Kinyanjui when he appeared before the Senate Ad-Hoc Committee investigating Solai Dam Tragedy at Parliament on Wednesday 18/07/18. [Boniface Okendo,Standard]

The biggest chunk of the county’s Sh18 billion budget will go towards recurrent expenditure.

According to the county’s Appropriation Bill, 2018, Governor Lee Kinyanjui will spend Sh9.5 billion to pay workers’ salaries and other recurrent expenses for the next 12 months.

The Bill was unanimously adopted by the assembly on Tuesday.

The county’s wage bill alone will take up Sh6 billion of the Sh9.5 billion vote set aside for recurrent expenditures.

The department of health has the highest vote for salaries and wages amounting to Sh4.3 billion.

Members of the County Assembly (MCAs) raised concern over the ballooning wage bill, saying it has reached unsustainable levels and urged the Executive to institute measures to reduce recurrent expenditure.

The assembly Majority Whip Irene Chebichi said the Executive needed to urgently release the report on staff audit and skills assessment, noting the huge wage bill needs to be addressed.

“We know how many staff are in the payroll and the reason the wage bill keeps growing,” said Chebichi.

When he took office a year ago, Governor Kinyanjui instituted a staff and skills audit, saying it would go along way in addressing the raising wage bill.

But Olkaria MCA Peter Palang’a said the governor has instead increased the wage bill by employing more staff, hence increasing expenditure on salaries and wages from Sh5.2 billion to Sh6 billion in one year.

Staff audit

“It is important that the wage bill be properly scrutinised to establish the exact number of staff, what they do and their qualifications so that we can address the ballooning wage bill,” said Palang’a.

But the staff audit that was conducted by Pricewaterhousecooper is yet to be made public, almost an year after it was carried out.

The county executive in charge of Public Service Management Lawrence Mwangangi had indicated that the audit report would be ready by July 15.

The county development programmes will consume Sh7.9 billion. There will be an addition of Sh902,713,287 appropriation-in-aid that would see the 2018-19 budget hit the Sh18 billion mark.

However during the debate on the Appropriation Bill 2018, Mauche MCA Philip Rotich raised concerns over the dwindling local revenue collection saying since 2013, the county has never met its targets.

According to budget estimates in the 2013/14 financial year, collection was Sh1.3 billion  against a target of Sh2.5 billion.

In 2014-2015 financial year, the target was Sh2 billion but the county managed only Sh1.6 billion. In  the financial year that followed, the county collected Sh1.5 billion against a target of Sh2.3 billion.

And in the just concluded financial year, there was a shortfall of Sh817 million after  the Treasury failed to hit the Sh2.5 billion target they had set.

Medics contracts

A total of 188 medics whose contracts expired on June 30 will now have them renewed after the committee proposed an allocation of Sh53.8 million.

The committee has also allocated Sh9.6 million for non-practicing allowances for health workers inherited from the defunct local authorities.

Another key proposal in the budget is the allocation of Sh177 million for purchase of equipment to be used for maintenance and rehabilitation of roads.