Ruto Signs A Bill Allocating More Funds To Counties

Nairobi March 4 – President William Ruto has signed a bill allocating more fund to county governments. The County Government Allocations Bill sought to allocate more funds to counties to key development sectors.

Speaking after appending the signature, in statehouse Nairobi, the head of state said he is happy that the government have  resources to support counties adding that “close to Ksh29 billion will be made available” through the Bill.

Among the sectors that will reap big from the new allocation includes agriculture, health, water and climate change.

National Assembly Speaker Moses Wetangula said that enactment of the Bill allow counties to access more funding to improve delivery of services to citizens.

“This enactment allows counties to access supplementary funding, empowering them to better fulfill their duties and improve the provision of essential services to citizens,” Wetangula wrote in his X (formerly twitter) account.

The Bill was introduced in Parliament on June 2023. It was passed in the parliament and later approved by Senate in February 2024.

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Counties of Nyandarua, Tharaka Nithi, and Tana River was allocated Ksh454 million for construction of county headquarters offices.

For long, the county governments has been in a logger-heads with the national government following national government’s failure to allocate sufficient resources to counties.

In February this year, the Council of Governors told the Senate Committee that they needed Ksh450 billion as an equitable share as opposed to Ksh391 billion that National Treasury had proposed in the Division of Revenue between the two levels of governments.

This comes at the backdrop of Ruto’s constant reminder to Kenyans that the government was using 70 percent of its revenue to pay loans.

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On October 2023, Ruto directed ministries to cut their 2023/24 budgets by 10 percent in order to align with available resources.  

At the time, the head of state spoke candidly on corruption and wastage saying that “wastage and corruption will not be tolerated.”