Cord leader Raila Odinga has warned that President Uhuru Kenyatta is planning to reduce County allocations.
He said the president wants to reduce County government allocations from 20 per cent to an ambiguous figure that will be determined by the National government, to purportedly cater for “equitable share of taxes”.
Citing the The Petroleum (Exploration, Development and Production) Bill 2016, which the president declined to assent to it, Raila claimed Uhuru was also planning to reduce the amount to benefit host communities from 10 per cent to 5 per cent.
Odinga said Uhuru was attempting to place the entitlements of the Petroleum host communities and County governments at the mercy of the executive arm of the National government, which he said was a clear violation of the Constitution.
Addressing the press, Tuesday, he took issue with the national government, saying it has a worse record on absorption of budget, than the Counties.
"We have never seen ministries or other national government agencies denied monies in the budget on account of their failure to absorb their allocations. In fact, most counties have a better budget absorption than many National Government ministries and agencies."
"In any event, there is no reason why we cannot create a sovereign fund for counties into which all monies due to the counties and local communities are invested and the monies released to them as they require and at a rate they can absorb,'' said Raila.