AfricaPress-Kenya: Seventy percent of Nakuru County’s next financial year budget will be spent on recurrent expenditure while only 30 percent will go towards development.
This is according to the 2020/2021 Fiscal Strategy paper tabled at the County Assembly.
County Assembly Chairperson for Budget committee Joel Karuri said that the paper has been committed to various house committees for review.”After reviewing the paper, we shall subject the budget to public participation after which it shall be returned to the Assembly for approval.
We are determined to have the budget passed within the constitutional timelines,” said Karuri.In the fiscal strategy paper, the county government estimates its budget at Sh14.5 billion out of which Sh10.1 billion and Sh4.4 billion will go towards recurrent and development expenditures respectively.
The budget is however a drop by Sh6.8 billion compared to the budget of the current financial year which had a total approved amount of Sh21.3 billion.The final estimates are however expected to rise to nearly Sh20 billion once the county gives a report on its roll over which last year accumulated to Sh3.9 billion meant for development projects.
The county is also facing a reduction in own revenue collections this year with Governor Lee Kinyanjui recently announcing a projected drop by Sh800 million attributed to the Covid-19 pandemic effects on the economy.
At the same time, the county is set to have a budget cut amounting to Sh700 million after National Treasury announced plans to slash county allocations by Sh46 billion due to the pandemic.
All is however not gloomy as it comes with an enhancement on the ward development kitty from Sh1.5 billion to Sh1.6 billion which translates to Sh25.4 million for each of the 55 wards.
Once approved, the Health department will take a lion share of the total budget with an estimated allocation of Sh6 billion which amounts to 41.8 percent.The department is followed by the county treasury, which has been allocated Sh1.8 billion (12.5 percent) while the Infrastructure department has been allocated Sh1.2 billion (8.6 percent).
The County Assembly will get 7.7 percent of the budget amounting to Sh1.1 billion out of which Sh140 million will be spent on development votes.This will also be the first budget to allocate money for the Nakuru and Naivasha municipalities as Nakuru town gears towards attaining city status later this year.
The bill for city status is pending at the Senate. Once passed, President Uhuru Kenyatta who has in his previous visits backed the plan will assent it into law making Nakuru the first city in the Rift Valley region.
In the budget, the Nakuru municipality has been allocated Sh21.1 million while Naivasha municipality has been allocated Sh20.3 million.
From the amounts, the municipal boards however have no development allocations as they are expected to spend the money on operationalizing themselves through staffing and running various programmes towards attainment of the status.
