The Kitui county assembly on Thursday passed the Sh11 billion supplementary budget, which they rejected in December.
The supplementary budget was passed even as some MCAs, led by David Thuvi of Kithumula, Fredrick Nthuri of Tharaka, said allocations to some departments were unwarranted.
The few dissenting MCAs said they supported the budget on condition that workers and contractors will get their cash. They, however, pointed out that it had glaring and serious fiscal loopholes.
The county had suffered serious financial setbacks since the assembly rejected the budget last year. Many services and projects had been disrupted.
The MCAs had rejected the budget citing, among other things, failure to allocate funds evenly to projects across the county.
On Thursday, Thuvi questioned Sh34.5 million and Sh41.5 million allocations to the office of the governor and the Treasury Department. He said Agriculture, Environment, Tourism, lands and Infrastructure departments got paltry allocations despite having many projects to implement. He laughed off the Sh200,000 given to the Environment department
Thuvi said it was wrong that Sh50 million and Sh30 million meant for workers' mortgage and car loans had been dropped. He said the budget had been politicised and dissenting MCAs were viewed as obstacles even though they raised pertinent issues. He said the assembly had no option but to pass it, but cautioned that in the fullness of time, residents will exonerate them from blame.
