Creditors owed by the Nakuru County government may start receiving their outstanding dues from next month, a senior official has said.
The county’s finance chief officer Parsaloi Torome said he was optimistic that by then, the national government would have sent sufficient cash to Nakuru. He added that a case filed in court challenging reduced allocations to counties will have been resolved by then.
Torome said that at the moment, the county government is using income it saved from last year’s budget and revenue it generated in the months of July and August to pay salaries and run essential services pending the case’s outcome.
He added that all employees have been paid their July salaries and would be paid their August salaries by next week, from August 27.
Operations in 41 out of the 47 counties have been affected after their budgets for the 2014/15 financial year were slashed by Sh20 billion.
The Commission for Revenue Allocation chairman Micah Cheserem said the spending guidelines would curb lavish expenditure and ensure that the bulk of money allocated to counties goes to health services, roads, water and other development projects.
“We have to save devolution from collapse. These figures (ceilings) have been arrived at after costing every anticipated expense and allowances for MCAs and executives,” said Cheserem.
The directive sets expenditure ceilings of Sh16.9 billion for assemblies, Sh13.3 billion for executives and Sh207.8 billion for service delivery and development.
The caps were based on an allocation of Sh238 billion that CRA recommended for counties in the next fiscal year. The Intergovernmental Budget and Economic Council, however, later reduced the amount to Sh226 billion.
MCAs, through the County Assemblies Forum, have, however, rejected the budget ceilings, arguing that each county assembly had outlined its budget ceilings, based on individual circumstances, by March 14 according to a schedule in the Public Finance Act 2012.