Assembly passes 'abnormal' budget

Mandera County Assembly members have approved a Sh11.4 billion budget for the 2022/23 financial year despite ‘abnormal’ allocations noted by the Budget and Appropriations Committee.

Committee chairman Ahmed Rashid Mohamed told the assembly some of the development items budgeted for needed clarifications.

“In the development expenditure, some items have been given abnormally huge allocations while others have incomplete details,” he said.

He listed desilting of various dams for Sh208 million, drilling and equipping boreholes at Sh410 million and proposed building of departmental offices for Sh30 million as the items that have abnormal allocations.

The committee also flagged a Sh16 million allocation for the building of Takaba Hospital, though it had been built, according to MCAs.

They also questioned the allocation of Sh104 million for a county headquarters and another Sh120 million for road maintenance.

The executive has proposed to spend Sh1.5 million to build a multipurpose hall at the Mandera Town Police Station and another Sh25 million for water infrastructure at Elagsaro Secondary School.

A total of Sh147.5 million will now be spent on proposed airstrips in Banisa, Rhamu, Elwak and Lafey.

“The above programmes are national government functions yet no explanation on memorandum was provided,” Mr Mohamed said.

In the budget estimates, the executive failed to explain the high recurrent expenditure, including Sh307 million for pension and gratuity and Sh344 million for staff medical insurance.

Also unexplained is high recurrent budget expenditure, including extraneous allowances of Sh350 million and personal allowances of Sh234 million.

Mr Mohamed pointed out that the executive reduced the county assembly spending ceilings from Sh826 million to Sh811 million against the County Allocations of Revenue Act 2022.

He told the assembly that the Finance executive had informed them that a higher budget was needed for desilting water pans as most of them were highly silted and needed cleaning for the onset of rains.

The committee was also informed that the proposed Sh16 million for Takaba hospital was to settle the balance owed to the contractor.

Attempts to oppose the budget estimates by Takaba MCA Bishar Maalim Abdullahi and his Wargadud counterpart Alinoor Derrow fell on deaf ears despite their concerted efforts on the floor.

Mr Abdullahi asked the assembly to allow amendments to the estimates to accommodate drought mitigation measures and other life-changing development projects, but other members rejected his amendments.

Mr Derrow accused Speaker Mohamed Adan Khalif of forcing the budget estimates down the MCAs' throats.

“We are here to serve members of the public who elected us, but from the happenings today, it is very clear that this process has been hijacked,” he said.

Mr Khalif, now eyeing the governor’s seat, presided over the sitting that saw MCAs approve the 2022/23 budget estimates.

“He is an interested party in this budget and our standing orders demand he should have recused himself from this sitting,” Mr Derrow lamented.

Malkamari MCA Abdi Hassan Ali opposed the estimates, terming them outrageous and a plan by some politicians to raise funds for their campaigns.

“We all know that abnormalities cited are ways of raising funds for campaigns for a certain political wing. We need to be sober enough and have the interests of our people at heart over this budget instead of approving it because of the political interests of a few individuals,” he said.

He questioned why the committee only conducted public participation in Mandera town and not in all the six sub-counties as required by law.

The committee recommended the county treasury provide comprehensive information on the revenue projections to use resources effectively.

The county executive was also asked to enhance revenue collection in Mandera to improve the resource envelope.

Mandera expects to get Sh11.2 billion from the national government as equitable share and Sh200 million from local collections to fund the budget.