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{
    "id": 768577,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/768577/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 62,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Further, Section 168 of the PFM Act, 2012 requires designated fund administrators of the county established funds to submit financial reports to the Controller of Budget not later than 15 days after the end of each quarter. I think we need to introduce some amendment to this particular regulation, where the counties that do not submit reports of the quarters that have passed should not be allocated more money. Unless we introduce those measures, we will still get into such problems as noted by the Controller of Budget. During the period under review, the office experienced delay in the submission of the quarterly financial reports by some of the counties and this resulted in the late preparation of the budget implementation review, thereby affecting budget oversight by the institutions such as Parliament. This causes delays in the implementation of plans in many other institutions. Therefore, the Senate needs to do something about this. Mr. Speaker, Sir, the county governments should ensure timely preparation and submission of the financial reports in line with Sections 166(4) and 168 of the PFM Act 2012 and Section 16 of the Controller of Budget Act, 2016. These are recommendations with regard to under-performance in local revenue collection. Article 209(3) of the Constitution, 2010 empowers the county governments to impose property rates, entertainment taxes and many other taxes that they are authorised to impose by an Act of Parliament. During the period, the counties collected Kshs32.52billion, representing 56.4 per cent of the annual target of the Kshs57.66billion and a decrease of 7.1 per cent from Kshs35.02billion realised in the Financial Year 2015/2016. This clearly shows low local revenue performance, which implied that some planned activities could not be implemented due to insufficient funding. As I said earlier, we need to do something about the local revenue collected by these counties and make sure that they account for it. County governments should, therefore, develop and implement strategies aimed at enhancing local revenue collection. Also, there was delay by the National Treasury to disburse equitable share of the revenue raised nationally, contrary to the County Allocation of Revenue Act 2016 Disbursement Schedule. Section 5 of the County Allocation of Revenue Act, 2016, provides that county governments’ allocation shall be transferred to the respective county revenue funds in accordance with disbursement schedules approved by the Senate. There was a delay in this financial year. I think we are contravening the law and that should not happen. It is the responsibility of the National Treasury to disburse the national equitable share of revenue to county governments, in line with the approved disbursement schedule, which sets out the monthly amounts to be disbursed. Mr. Speaker, Sir, it was noted in this particular Report that there was so much delay, especially on the hired health equipment. Clearly, when there is a delay, it means that the counties are paralyzed. Therefore, we need to do something about that. There were also high pending bills. As at June, 2017 the county governments had accumulated pending bills, as I had indicated earlier. The figure I quoted is not the total figure submitted by all the counties. There is a bit of delay. The accumulation of pending bills erodes investor confidence, which negatively affects the business community and could result in litigation and creditors. So many investors are going to court to sue the The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes"
}