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{
    "id": 768571,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/768571/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 56,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "There were delayed payments leading to pending bills; this is also another issue that was raised by the Controller of Budget. As at June 2016, 43 counties accumulated pending bills amounting to Kshs35.84 billion which in effect reduced funds available in the following financial year. This amount is supposed to be more because some counties have not actually submitted their reports for that financial year. Thirdly, is delay in submission of quarterly reports. Some counties delayed in submission of reports to the Controller of Budget and, therefore, delay in the releases of the report by the Controller of Budget. Clearly, this is also a contravention of the law on financial management. Mr. Speaker, Sir, there are three forms of revenue sources for the county governments; one of them being equitable share of the revenue raised nationally, conditional allocation from the national Government and development partners and then the counties’ own revenue. In this case, the Office of the Controller of Budget noted that the following has happened: Underperformance of revenue collection by seven per cent. You will find that most counties rely on national Government allocation. They do not care about the revenue they generate. Clearly this has to be checked properly to ensure that counties generate more revenue to ensure they supplement the national allocation. The most underperformed was local revenue collection with the least performing being Mandera at 21 per cent, Garissa County, 23.4 per cent; Wajir, 33 per cent; Kilifi, 39.1 per cent and Tharaka-Nithi, 39.3 per cent. This is critical because in a plan, a county is supposed to raise 100 per cent. When you look at the report, some counties are actually below by 21 per cent. We really need to do something about it. The best performing counties were: Marsabit County at 107.3 per cent - I need to congratulate Sen. Hargura for this - Turkana County, 103.5 per cent; Bungoma County – where you were the Governor then and the Senate Minority Leader was the leader in this House – you raised 90.4 per cent, which is very good; then Baringo County, 87.4 per cent and Bomet County 86.2 per cent. According to the report of the Auditor-General, there is a great need to find and implement better strategies and ways of enhancing local revenue collection within the counties. We have spoken time and again in this House, even in the last Parliament, that accountability of the local revenue collected is challenging because some of the counties do not even bother collecting revenue. Some of them do not even account for the revenues collected. Some of the money is being used at source and that is against the Public Finance Management (PFM) Act. Mr. Speaker, Sir, there is also need to create realistic budgets and refrain from overstating local revenue in proposed budgets. Some of the counties have overstated their budget and end up not utilizing the funds, yet they go ahead to ask for supplementary budget. As a House, we need to do something about this. The delay in the disbursement of conditional allocation should be resolved in order to advance the county development goals. The National Treasury should also make sure that the monies are released to the counties in time, so that they can utilize money especially for development. Non-disclosure of local revenue collection is also a major issue. Most counties do not disclose the revenue that they collect. This issue has to be dealt with by this House. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes"
}