The office of the Controller of Budget has been been asked to release money for bursaries in Nairobi not later than Wednesday this week.
This is contained in a report by the County Assembly Finance, Budget and Appropriation Committee on the delay of the bursaries for the financial year 2018-2019 that was tabled on Thursday last week.
The county treasury has also been instructed to submit to the CoB the certified statements together with a summary showing the expenditure of Sh357 million disbursed not later than Thursday this week.
Last week, a section of MCAs disrupted plenary sittings, vowing not to allow house business until the executive releases bursary funds.
The rowdy legislatures attempted to grab the mace but were stopped by the assembly's Sergeant-at-Arms.
Budget committee chairman Robert Mbatia said once a verification report from the office of the CoB is received, the Finance executive should ensure that issues raised are addressed and corrected. The report should be submitted to the office of the COB within 24 hours.
“The budget committee will be having a meeting with the Controller of Budget, the county treasury and the Education department on Thursday,” Mbatia said.
The county treasury, the Education department, and Cooperative Bank will work together to ensure that the bank statements on the bursary fund are accurate and reflect the true position of the operations of the account.
The CoB has been asked to fast track the verification of the information provided and submit information to the county on the same day.
In the report, the Budget committee had observed that whereas the county officials said communication was done, in most cases there was no paper trail to support the same.
MCAs want the executive to release bursaries after forms were issued last year.
Majority leader Abdi Hassan Guyo condemned the two walkouts by the MCAs last week, saying they were not the way to solve the issue.
Highrise MCA Kennedy Oyugi said MCAs will walkout again if the bursary funds are not released this week. However, Guyo opposed the plan.
"There will be no walk out again in this house. What transpired last week was uncalled for and embarrassing," he said.
Guyo told MCAs that the house leadership will step up efforts to have the bursaries released this week.
The Education and Finance departments did not work together resulting in a blame game.
This was evident when the two departments appeared before the committee last week on Wednesday where they blamed each other for failure to submit the required documents needed by the Controller of Budget.
It was also observed that the county had not implemented previous resolutions of the assembly on the administration of bursary funds in regard to the writing of cheques disbursement, administration of fund adherence to the fiscal requirement.
Whereas the bursary cheques were issued in July 2018, some of them were drawn in June 2018.
Each of the 85 elected MCAs gave 700 bursary forms to needy children last year and each ward was to receive Sh3.5 million.
Upto date, the cash has not been disbursed despite Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko launching another Sh400 million bursary in April this year.
(Edited by P. Wanambisi)
