Kitui county workers may be forced to go without salaries even after the Senate passed the county revenue-sharing formula that paves the way for regional governments to get their allocations.
Governor Charity Ngilu's administration has not been able to pay workers since July because of a budget stalemate.
Ngilu rejected the county's Sh11.3 billion budget estimates on June 30, saying the county assembly had altered the document.
With the stalemate, Kitui will not be able to access funds when Treasury releases the money.
Ngilu said the budget was badly altered and did not represent the letter and spirit of the original document that emanated from the executive. The governor’s further refused to present the 2020-21 appropriation bill to the assembly.
The governor also rejected the budget on the basis that MCAs reallocated millions of shillings that were set aside for the Kitui County Textile Centre. The textile centre is one of the governor's flagship projects.
Ngilu, at some point sought the intervention of the Controller of Budget Margaret Nyakang’o who in her advice asked the governor to convene a roundtable meeting with MCAs to unlock the budget stalemate.
“Therefore, we reiterate our earlier sentiments imploring upon the county executive and the county assembly to resolve the impasse and pay regard to the sovereign will of the people of Kitui county who deserve the services,” Nyakang'o said after Ngilu had asked to be allowed to spend money without the budget.
On Tuesday, Ngilu’s team and MCAs led by speaker George Ndotto were making efforts to resolve the deadlock. Sources said both parties had agreed that the contentious budget passed on June 30 be done away with and a new budget document developed.
The chairman of the County Assembly Budget and Appropriations committee Boniface Kilaa said the parties had resolved to relax their hard line stances for the sake of residents. He said development had grounded to a halt and workers had not received salaries since July.
“Yes, due to the untold suffering the budget stalemate has occasioned the people of Kitui and also forced workers and as well as MCAs to miss salaries for months, we have agreed to come together and find a solution to the budget stalemate,” Kilaa said.
Majority leader Peter Kilonzo confirmed that a long night meeting between the executive and the assembly members last Friday agreed to cede some ground. Ngilu and Ndotto guided the deliberations.
“All I can tell you is that there is a possibility of white smoke very soon. By the second week of October we will have workers having received their delayed salaries and any halted development projects will be jump-started,”Kilonzo said.
Sources said MCAs agreed to reallocate monies they had redirected from funding Kicotec, for a county stone crusher, for women empowerment programme, for the purchase of trucks as well as Sh100 million for contractors’ bills.
MCAs’ push for the inclusion of funds for ECDE classrooms across the county, security lights in markets centres, hiring of ECDE teachers and for the grading of 3,000kms of roads across all wards was also factored in.
But the ward representatives remained adamant to allocate Sh100 million for a green gram packaging plant and Sh55 million for the setting up of market structure including at Kanyonyoo as proposed by Ngilu.
