Rarieda MP Otiende Amollo does not agree with the Treasury's explanation that the government is running broke because of the rising cost of maintaining county governments.
Otiende who spoke in Kisumu on Friday said Treasury is dashing away from real issues affecting the country, sugar coating bitter truths that the country is losing billions of taxpayers’ money on corruption."County governments have been in place since 2013. So why didn't we run broke then if the problem is with the counties? Jubilee is simply shy to tell us its corruption," Otiende said as he spoke to journalists.Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich on March 7, petitioned Parliament to slash money allocated to counties by between Sh15 billion and Sh18 billion in the 2018/2019 Financial Year due to the rising cost of paying county employees’ salaries.Rotich told Senate's Finance Committee that the government was broke and was unable to raise much in revenue terms.County governments were allocated Sh302 billion in the 2017/18 Fiscal Year, implying in the 2018/2019 Financial Year, the amount will reduce to between Sh287billion and Sh284 billion.The opposition, led by NASA leaders Raila Odinga has on numerous occasions accused President Uhuru Kenyatta's government of abating corruption which has hugely cost the country in development terms.