Governors have threatened to shut down operations in counties should the national government fail to release Sh94 million meant for the devolved units.
The county chiefs have convened a meeting on Friday to discuss the matter and take a final decision on a possible move to stall operations in the 47 counties.
Allocations to the counties that are still pending are Sh29.7 billion for March, Sh33.3 billion for April and Sh31.4 billion for May, 2023.
At the same time, the county chiefs have accused the national treasury of frustrating devolved units by deliberately failing to release funds to the regions, thereby crippling service delivery and implementation of key projects.
Kakamega Governor Fernandes Barasa, the chairman of the Council of Governors’ Finance, Planning and Economic Affairs Committee, said governors were not able to run the counties and had no option but to suspend operations.
"All the 47 governors will hold a meeting today (Friday) to assess the possibility to shut down counties if the national treasury will continue reneging on the promise for timely release of funds and ensure full absorption by counties," said Mr Barasa.
The move by the county chiefs comes at a time when the devolved units are grappling with a financial crunch that has forced them to approach banks for overdrafts running into millions of shillings to pay salaries.
Mr Barasa, who spoke at the launch of the third Kakamega County Integrated Development Plan (CIDP) at Bukhungu stadium, said the national treasury is required by law to release funds to counties by 15th of every month but that has not been adhered to.
"There is no way we can expect development in counties without money. We are in arrears going up to four months yet we are almost finishing the current financial year," he added.
He said some of the issues governors will discuss are a proposal for the government to effect changes to make the national treasury more independent in its delivery of services to the counties.
Mr Barasa said the treasury was biased and served the interests of the national government while ignoring the needs of counties.
According to him, national government ministries were receiving funds on time, while counties were being starved of funds, crippling operations.
"We are putting the national treasury Cabinet Secretary on notice that from the meeting, we shall come out with a clear way forward on the allocation of money to counties. We need to come up with a reliable and predictable method for timely release of funds," Mr Barasa noted.
According to the latest report from the Controller of Budget, the 47 devolved units have total pending bills of Sh158 billion, comprising Sh157.18 billion by the county executives and Sh1.63 billion by county assemblies as of February 2023.
Appearing before the Senate Committee on Devolution chaired by Wajir Senator Mohamed Abbas, Controller of Budget Margaret Nyakang’o said the outstanding debts have grown from Sh153 billion in the previous financial year.
She explained that apart from Nairobi, which accounts for the lion’s share of the pending bills at 63.2 per cent, other counties with high pending bills are Wajir at Sh5.50 billion, Kiambu (Sh4.98 billion), Mombasa (Sh4.97 billion), Machakos (Sh2.88 billion) and Murang’a (Sh2.57 billion).
Other counties with more than Sh1 billion in pending bills are Mandera (Sh2.12 billion), Turkana (Sh2.1 billion), Kajiado (Sh2 billion), Kisumu (Sh1.67 billion), Kitui (Sh1.43 billion), Narok (Sh1.29 billion) and Garissa (Sh1.28 billion).
Ms Nyakang’o said her office wrote to all the 47 county governments to finalise the verification process and submit the pending bills report with the payment plan for implementation and monitoring.
Although many counties formed internal committees to verify the pending bills following the change in administration in the counties after the August 2022 General Election, only 12 counties have submitted reports from the verification processes. The 12 are Lamu, Vihiga, Uasin Gishu, Murang’a, Machakos, Siaya, Kakamega, Kwale, Turkana, Laikipia, Nyamira and Kitui.
