Kirinyaga Governor Anne Mumbi Waiguru now wants Controller of Budget and the Senate to intervene on the budget stalemate with ward representatives, warning the MCAs iterations of her proposal could ground county operations.
According to Governor Waiguru, Kirinyaga County operations are already slowly grounding to a standstill following bitter differences between the Executive and Legislature.
The hapless county boss noted that the Executive presented the FY 2020/2021 proposed budget to the county assembly for approval but instead of passing the budget, the assembly submitted a completely new
budget with a variation of over 30 percent per vote.
On a press release sent by her communication office, Waigure noted that the MCAs went against the requirement of Regulation 37(1) of the Public Finance (County Government) Regulations 2015 which limits the assembly variations to 1 percent of the ceilings.
The county boss, who is increasingly running out of options on her showdown with assembly, said she won’t approve the specific alterations made by the MCAs.
Though she has an option of sending back the budget with her memorandum, the governor now is calling on Jubilee Party to help her rein in the rogue ward reps.
Waiguru said that the county assembly moved over Sh300 million meant to pay salaries for health workers to construction of their ward offices, a move she said unacceptable.
“Assembly removed Ksh. 20 million meant for payment of casual workers’ wages who are critical in cleaning our environment and our health facilities especially during this time as we deal with
Covid-19 virus,” said Waiguru.
The county boss who last week appointed a peace and reconciliation committee to mediate with the defiant assembly but later withdraw after opposition from various stakeholders.
The governor said the MCAs had also re-allocated Sh14.6 million for ambulances’ fuel, water bills, and oxygen for hospitals.
“It means paralyzing operations in our critical health sector,” said Waiguru.
The governor, who was recently saved by the Senate as the MCAs sought to impeach her, said that Kirinyaga County is one of the counties under the presidential programme for coffee revitalization.
The county was required to raise Sh100 million to match national government funds as part of the programme of which only Sh50 million was initially allocated.
“The removal of Sh50 million allocated for conditional matching funds will mean that about 68,000 coffee farmers from Kirinyaga will not benefit from the program which includes access to Cherry Advance Revolving Fund.
She also noted that the Assembly removed Ksh.184 million allocated as conditional matching funds for donor-funded programs under Health, Agriculture, and Education,” said the Kirinyaga County boss.
