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{
    "id": 1588134,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1588134/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 1216,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Alego Usonga, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Samuel Atandi",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "billion is earmarked for this 2025/2026 Financial Year. The Ksh9.78 billion represents 0.5 per cent of the latest audited and approved national revenue and Ksh2.7 billion constitutes arrears authorised under the Division of Revenue Bill of 2025. The Fund allocated Ksh12.4 billion in 2018. That was arrears for the 2014/2016 Financial Year. The Ksh10.7 billion was earmarked for the 2021/2022 Financial Year, which was the second marginalisation policy. As we talk, I wanted to say that we have arrears of about Ksh45 billion. It has not been remitted to the Equalisation Fund. This is a very big challenge to the Fund because there is a financial year when there was zero allocation to the Fund. This has really affected the performance of this Fund. The Budget and Appropriations Committee has raised the concern with the Ministry of the National Treasury and Economic Planning. We need to enforce it going forward. We need to fund all those arrears. There is persistent regional disparity in the way this Fund allocates resources. For example, eight counties account for over 60 per cent of the Fund in this budget. Turkana County will receive Ksh1.86 billion, West Pokot will receive Ksh1.7 billion, and Narok County will receive the highest share at Ksh1.3 billion. Mandera, Wajir, Samburu, Garissa, and Baringo will receive Ksh5.5 billion collectively. This really underscores the marginalisation I was talking about in sharing the Fund. To safeguard accountability, we recommend that the funds bypass county revenue funds accounts. Instead, they should flow directly to the dedicated Central Bank of Kenya accounts for each county. We recommend that because we want to ensure the funds are not used for other purposes when they go to counties. We know governors lack discipline. Hon. Temporary Speaker, we are making this recommendation because we want to ensure that when these funds go to the counties, they are not used for other purposes. We know the governors lack discipline. Sometimes they receive the money and do something else with it, as opposed to earmarking it for the reasons they have been appropriated. We would also like the Controller of Budget to authorise the withdrawals, so that we eliminate the bureaucracy that exists. There is a lot of bureaucracy in the way these funds are administered. Therefore, we want to give the powers to the Controller of Budget to administer them. This will allow funds to flow directly and bypass the county revenue accounts. On the issue of arrears and shortfalls, we tried to meet the shortfalls by allocating about Ksh2.7 billion in this financial year. However, we realised it is negligible, especially for the case where we have a shortfall of about Ksh45 billion. We need a really drastic decision where we will allocate at least half of that shortfall, which translates to Ksh20 billion, in every financial year going forward. By doing this, we will have allocated full shortfalls in the next two financial years. Therefore, I recommend that this House approves the Equalisation Fund Appropriation Bill as it is to allow us to move and allow the counties and resources to flow to the projects. Hon. Temporary Speaker, I beg to move and call upon my able deputy, Hon. Pukose, to second."
}