Gachagua and Munya reject budget by MCAs

Meru Governor Peter Munya and his Nyeri counterpart Governor Nderitu Gachagua have rejected budgets passed by their respective county assemblies.

Both county chiefs accused MCAs of significantly changing the budget beyond the one per cent provided by law.

In a memorandum to the assembly, Nyeri county said the Sh6.4bn budget passed by MCAs is inconsistent and unconstitutional.

“The assembly grossly violated the law in their amendments of the budget, the county executive therefore cannot accept the approved budget,” read the memorandum.

The county faulted ward reps decision to make amendments on the budget without soliciting the views of the Finance Executive Charles Githinji.

Governor Munya has rejected the Sh8.3 billion budget citing significant reduction of development allocation by Members of the County Assembly.

In a memorandum read by Speaker Joseph Kaberia, Mr Munya says the Assembly slashed the development expenditure from 33 percent to 31 percent.

WORKERS MAY NOT BE PAID

“The spirit of the law is to ensure progressive increase in development expenditure rather than decrease it. I therefore insist that we revert back to the overall development expenditure to 33 percent, “the memorandum reads. If the impasse in the two counties is not solved, suppliers and workers may not get paid.

The worst hit in the alterations were the development funds proposed for the office of the governor and that of the county secretary.

When making the alteration the MCAs did not comply with the regulation under the Public Finance Management Act that requires them to indicate the appropriations that were balancing off.

“When a deduction was done it is not clear where the amounts were transferred to neither the deficit being reduced as required by law,” said Dr Githinji.