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{
    "id": 533685,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/533685/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 549,
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    "content": "need a meeting of all the Senators with CRA, so that they can take us through the ceilings. If possible, we will try and organize that meeting in the presence of the members of the executive and County Assemblies Forum, so that once we discuss and agree, then there should be no challenge later from the county assemblies. Going forward, this now is a legal document that will form an attachment to the County Allocation of Revenue Act, so that it is not going to be subject to further amendments once your allocation has been approved. I had mentioned earlier that the budget ceiling is sharing out of that Kshs30 billion between the two arms of government at the county level. We have focused a lot on the assemblies. What happens on the side of the executive? Out of that Kshs30 billion, Kshs17 billion went to the assemblies and Kshs13 to the executive. The challenge that we have is that although we have allocated that Kshs13 billion to cover the salaries, allowances, operations and maintenance of the county executive, from the governors up to the ward administrators, the county executive have access to funds from the rest of the entities within the executive. So, you can access money from the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Agriculture or any other activities. It becomes very difficult, therefore, to contemplate a situation where the county executive of a particular county is actually limited in its operational expenses, to the amount of money that has been set in the ceiling for the executive. They are able to use money from other sources or marshal resources from the other entities. Therefore, we have told the Controller of Budget to do an audit and give us a report as to what extent the county executive is complying with the budget ceilings that have been set for them. We do not want a situation where a county executive is given a ceiling of Kshs500 million, but they spend Kshs2 billion or Kshs3 billion, because they can draw the money from any of the other votes at will. That is the challenge that we have given the Controller of Budget and we gave them examples. We have seen county executives that even take Members of the County Assemblies (MCAs) on foreign trips. How does a governor finance expenditure of an MCA that he is taking on foreign trip on the account of the executive? There is no provision for him in that ceiling that has been set by the CRA. So, this is an area that requires to be tightened up. I think it calls into question the whole issue of the accountability by the county executive. It shows clearly that in spite of the ceilings that have been set for them in those respective areas, the governors can have access to money from other sources. They starve other Ministries, so that they channel the money to their own administrative expenditure. This is what is happening and where all the money is getting lost. Otherwise, their Recurrent Expenditure should have been limited if they restrict themselves to the ceilings that have been set in terms of the new administrative structure. But because they do not do that, we have a situation where counties are spending 70 per cent of their money on recurrent expenditure. This is why it is very important at this time when there are a lot of concerns on integrity and corruption. We want to urge the governors that they will have themselves to blame if they start misusing resources that are meant for a particular purpose. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}