The approved Kitui county government budget for the new financial year has gone down by Sh200 million compared to the previous fiscal period.
MCAs passed Sh11.5 billion for the 2019-20 budget compared with the Sh11.7 billion in the ended 2018-19 fiscal year.
It is the first time since the inception of county governments in 2013 that a Kitui budget has been lower than the previous year's.
In 2013-14 the budget for Kitui was Sh6.5 billion which increased to Sh7.6 billion, Sh8 billion, Sh 8.8 billion and Sh9.8 billion in the fiscal years 2014-15, 2015-16, 2016-17 and 2017-18 respectively.
The budget committee chairman Boniface Kilaa Kasina told the Star on Tuesday that the budget-making process had been affected by the rift between the Senate and the National Assembly.
The two houses have tussled over how much money should be allocated to the county through the Division of Revenue Act.
The National Assembly wants the counties to get Sh316 billion while the Senate is insisting on Sh327 billion.
“We hope if the matter is resolved favourably so that we can adjust the budget upward,” Kasina said.
Kitui assembly allocated Sh40 million to each of the 40 wards in the county.
“We developed an itemised development budget for all the projects to be undertaken in each of the 40 wards,” Kasina said.
He said the new system was better than the bullet point budget of the past which was easily manipulated by the executive to reallocate monies to other projects.
“This time around we allocated money for specific projects in all the wards to ensure equitable distribution across the county,” he said.
(edited by O. Owino)
