Nairobi County Assembly allocates Badi Sh27.1 billion budget for 2020-21
The Nairobi Metropolitan Services has received a huge boost after MCAs allocated the Major General Mohammed Badi headed office Sh27.1 billion in the county budget.
This comes as the assembly on Thursday approved the County’s Financial Year 2020-2021 of Sh35.5 billion after amending the Nairobi City County Appropriation Bill, 2020.
Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko’s administration has been allocated Sh6.4 billion to cater for the remaining functions while Sh2 billion was allocated to the County Assembly.
Following the transfer of four core functions to the National Government, NMS has been allocated Sh18.0 billion for recurrent expenditure and Sh9.1 billion for Development.
Under NMS, the Health Sector will receive the lion’s share of Sh8.1 billion, Transport and Public Works Sh3.6 billion, Urban Planning and Lands Sh891 million, Water and Natural Resources Sh3.3 billion, Housing and Urban Development Sh1.1 billion, Energy and Lighting Sh3.3 billion, and Ward Development Funds Sh1.3 billion.
Under recurrent, Compliance Services was allocated Sh1.6 billion, Health Sh7.2 billion, Urban Planning and Lands Sh708 million, General Administration Sh3.7 billion, Housing and Urban Development Sh225 million, Ward Development Funds Sh30 million, Transport, Public Works and Infrastructure Sh1.1 billion and Water and Natural Resources Sh2.4 billion.
Image: MAUREEN KINYANJUI
The Finance, Budget and Appropriation committee Robert Mbatia noted that NMS had created a vote namely, Energy and Street lighting which has been allocated Sh1.1 billion.
Under Development; the allocations are as follows; Transport, Public Works and Infrastructure Sh2.5 billion, Health Sh887 million, Housing and Urban Development Sh888 million, Urban Planning and Lands Sh183 million, Water and Natural Resources Sh943 million and Sh2.3 billion for Energy and Street lighting.
From the Sh35.5 billion, Sh15.9 billion is the county’s equitable share from the National Government while Sh14.9 billion will be raised from its own source revenue.
“With KRA taking over the revenue collection in Nairobi, we are optimistic that the county will be able to collect the Sh14.9 billion,” Mbatia said.
Mbatia revealed that the county had Sh5.5 billion undeclared cash kept at the County Revenue Fund.
“After many consultations from both Treasury and NMS, we realized there were some undeclared cash balances, still kept at the County Revenue Fund. That is what has helped the committee get a good source of money leading to NMS getting Sh18.4 billion,” he said.
Image: MAUREEN KINYANJUI
Supporting the bill, Majority leader Abdi Hassan Guyo said all sectors were allocated fairly to deliver services to city residents.
“It was a tiresome process trying to balance both needs of NMS and the County Government but the document before the house has allocated funds where needed,” he said.
“No illegality has been committed because the transferred functions have well been catered for and the agenda of the President in Nairobi has to be prioritised,” Guyo added.
Ngara MCA Mwaura Chege had expressed concerns on where the additional Sh4.5 billion had been added from, noting that initially the chair budget had said the total was Sh31 billion but the committee added Sh4 billion to amount to Sh35 billion.
Responding, the Majority Leader explained that Sh3.5 billion is from the shareable revenue which was not remitted in 2019 -20 by Ministry of Finance.
“Another Sh1 billion was from the maintenance, funds and levy, Sh300 million from unspent cash from the county adding to the Sh35 billion meaning no illegality has been committed,” Guyo said.
Going further, he highlighted that both NMS and County Government will process payment of the number of staff under the functions they are accountable for.
It was revealed that NMS and the County had factored insurance cover for their staff separately, which was a challenge.
Image: FILE
Adding his sentiments on the issue, Minority Leader Michael Ogada noted that the budget of staff for NMS and County was a challenge since both entities had budgeted separately for its staff.
“As a committee we found it challenging to have one either NMS or County Government to pay all the staff and concluded that the staff will be paid accordingly by the entity they are under. That affected the figures in terms of allocation,” he said.
Ogada who is also the vice-chair Budget noted that NMS holds the key in development in terms of transferred functions and it is the reality thus having an allocation of more than Sh7 billion in development.
Referring to the pending bills, Ziwani MCA Millicent Mugadi, noted that the Small Medium Enterprises would be paid their dues.
Minority Whip Peter Imwatok urged the house not to accept any memorandum from the Governor on the bill to avoid back and forth delay tactics of the budget.
"As a House, we should not accept any memorandum because If we put on a weighing scale, NMS has more development on its plate than the County Government,” he said.
However, Health chairman Peter Warutere said there was no reason for Governor Sonko to refuse to accent the bill despite the law giving him a right of a memorandum.
“By law, the Governor is allowed to do a memorandum but this is an excellent budget and I hope he sees the light in it,” he said.
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