The Chairman of Deputy Governors' Forum, Dr Joash Maangi has challenged the Transition Authority (TA) to fast-track the costing process of all the devolved functions, to ensure funds are transferred to the county governments.
Maangi, who is also the Kisii County Deputy Governor disclosed that as deputy governors, they were pushing for faster conclusion of costing of devolved functions, to set a formula for which the devolved functions will be allocated funds from the National Treasury.
Speaking to the media on Monday in his office, Maangi lamented that the TA only transferred functions to the counties without corresponding funds to run the functions, leading to service delivery quagmire at county levels.
“County Governments have been given devolved functions, but corresponding funds to run the functions are yet to be released since TA had not done proper costing of the functions by the time of devolving the functions to the counties, making it difficult for the National Treasury to channel funds for the devolved functions,” stated Maangi.
He clarified that since the TA transferred the Functions to the Counties without proper costing, they were concerned that TA's mandate was fast coming to a close before the costing is done to allow for the funds to be channeled to the counties under ‘Funds follow Function’ principle.
“As deputy governors, we are concerned that TA's mandate is coming to an end before proper costing is done on all functions to be devolved, and if TA is disbanded before the costing process is complete, then there will be a crisis as counties will be forced to wait for long to have costing done for the funds of devolved functions to be channelled to the counties," stated Maangi.