The county government of Uasin Gishu is planning to build an official residence for the governor and his deputy.
While presenting a county budget estimates for the Financial Year 2018/19 at the County Assembly on Thursday, Finance County Executive Julius Ruto proposed that Sh100 million be set aside to facilitate the project.
“We have several public lands that we can use to build the house for the governor and his deputy so the funds will be only for the construction works,” Ruto told the press outside the Assembly’s buildings.
Uasin Gishu has no official residence for the governor and his deputy, over 5 years since the devolved system of governance came in place.
With similar projects facing opposition from other counties in the past, the Assembly’s leader of majority Josphat Lowoi sought to defend the setting aside of the Sh100 million to construct governor and his deputy’s residence.
He revealed that the move came as a result of a circular from the Commission on Revenue Allocation (CRA) requiring all counties to have the official residence for the governor and his deputy by 2019.
“We have seen that the money used to hire official residence for the two county bosses even surpasses the amount that has been set aside for the construction and according to CRA we should be having our own houses and no more renting,” said Lowoi.
“The Sh100 million could not be enough and we may be allocating more cash in the subsequent budgets to finalize the project,” added the Karuna Mibeki MCA.
The Finance County Executive presented a Sh8.4 billion budget estimate that will see Sh5.9 billion be from the equitable shareable revenue, Sh1.2 billion from the local revenue collection and Sh1.2 billion from the conditional grants.