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{
    "id": 879234,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/879234/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 415,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kikuyu, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Kimani Ichung'wah",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1835,
        "legal_name": "Anthony Kimani Ichung'Wah",
        "slug": "anthony-kimani-ichungwah"
    },
    "content": "In the county financial management and vertical division of revenue for 2019/2020, the Committee held consultations with the Council of Governors (CoG) and the Commission for Revenue Allocation (CRA). We raised a number of concerns which I now wish to highlight, top among them being development spending allocation where many counties are not able to allocate the statutory minimum of 30 per cent of their budget to development expenditure. Personnel emoluments in many of our counties are very high and the issue of pending bills. I think many of our Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) have suffered because of pending bills. These are being held by our county governments and they are almost to the tune of Ksh108.9 billion in the Financial Year 2014/2015 and Ksh70.9 billion in 2015/2016. The CoG indicated that the pending bills are as a result of poor cash transfers from the National Government. In some instances, funds are released one week towards the end of the financial year, making it difficult for counties to absorb these funds. However, on engagement with the National Treasury, they affirmed that in as much as there are usually delays in exchequer releases, at least, there is not a single financial year they have not remitted all monies. Therefore, it is a challenge for our county governments to ensure they are able to settle their pending bills. Indeed, they need to conform with the law because pending bills constitute the first charge every financial year. Therefore, all our county governments need to ensure that they comply with this particular provision in law. The other issue we raised is illegal procurement of goods and services which results to single sourcing, disregard of procurement rules and regulations, flouting laid down procedures and acting in disregard of procurement processes. You will see that both the Director of Criminal Investigations (DCI) and Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) have indeed moved to stem some of these habits within the county governments. There are a number of county officers being pursued by the investigative agencies and some hopefully, will be charged in courts of law. Proliferation of county public funds is an issue we also raised. There is also failure by county governments to post their financial transactions in the Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS), leading to inaccurate presentation of financial statements and failure to capture all correct financial positions of the counties. This may led to undisclosed local revenue collections and hence revenue leakages. It is instructive to note that many of our county governments, especially what is called their own source of revenue, are collecting revenues and not fully disclosing what they are raising locally. There are also a lot of leakages. We have proposed to the National Treasury to work with the county governments to have a system where they can track own source of revenues even with the county governments. The other issue we raised was the absence or ineffectiveness of internal audit committees and an asset register in line with the PFM Act and the County Governments Regulations of 2015. County governments are required to keep a register of all assets and liabilities inherited from defunct local authorities and assets and their value acquired under their administration. This is important since a lot of assets inherited by our county governments from the defunct municipal and county authorities are not traceable. Without a proper assets register, we will not track where these assets are and whether they are giving value to the people of Kenya and the people in those particular counties. The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}