• However, Sonko has stated that the county government is committed to ensuring the Metropolitan Services discharge the mandate assigned to them by continuing to provide the necessary support services.
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The rift between the County Government of Nairobi and Nairobi Metropolitan Service continues to widen as the battle for the control of funds rages on.
This comes as Governor Mike Sonko on Wednesday refused to assent to the Nairobi City County Supplementary Appropriation Bill 2020, sending it back to the County Assembly with amendments.
Sonko had until Wednesday to assent to the bill as the 14-day period would lapse on Thursday making the bill automatically become law.
Explaining why he refused to assent to the bill, the governor said that there were proposed allocations of monies to the bill to functions which were never transferred to the Nairobi Metropolitan Service.
“ The proposed allocations are contrary to the deed of Transfer, which while providing for Ancillary Services does not contemplate the whole, outright transfer of the listed function,” Sonko said.
’The Ancillary services that were listed in the bill appropriated to the Nairobi Metropolitan Service include Security and Safety Management, Disaster Management Coordination, Information and Communication Services, Public Finance Management, Economic and Financial Policy Formulation and Management.
Public Financial Management, Animal Health, Safety and Quality Assurance, Afforestation, Food Systems and Surveillance, Ward Development and General Administrative Services were also listed.
Sonko also noted that Ancillary services such as procurement, accounting, legal, enforcement services to the transferred functions shall be determined based on assessment by both the County Public Service Board and Public Service Commission of Kenya .
The governor highlighted that the remaining functions which are by law under the county government also require the ancillary services.
“ A blanket transfer of all the support functions to NMS will deny the remaining functions the same ancillary services they require to deliver on their constitutional mandate,” he said .
The county boss also states that the bill purports to transfer the Public Finance Management and the Economic and Financial Policy Formulation and Management of the Nairobi County Government to NMS which is not only "unconstitutional but also contrary to the express provisions of section 104 of the PFM Act".
“The county treasury has never been transferred to NMS,” Sonko said.
Recommendations
Giving his recommendations for amendments to the bill, Sonko said the county government will continue to support the ancillary services until such a time when there will be wholly transferred on Liaison between the CPSB and PSC after doing a needs assessment.
Highlighting Section 113 of the PFM Act, Sonko states that the CEC for Finance cannot make payments out of the Emergency Fund exceeding two per cent of the last audited accounts.
“ In FY 2018-19 the county reported a consolidated revenue collection of Sh26.01 billion and therefore the maximum that may be provided under the Emergency Fund is Sh520.2 million,” he said .
As a result, Sonko recommends Sh500 million be appropriated under the Emergency Fund to deal with emergencies including Covid-19.
In budgetary allocation for recurrent expenditure, Sonko has proposed Sh2.3 billion be allocated to Security and Safety Mangement and Disaster Management Coordination .
The Public Finance Management under the Finance and Economic Planning to get Sh4.6 billion while the Information and communication Services Sh85 .9 million.
Animal Health, Safety and Quality Asurance and Afforestation gets Sh40. 9 million.
Ward Development gets Sh34 million and General Administrative Services gets Sh500 million .
For development Security and Safety Management and Disaster Management Coordination get Sh330 million.
For Information and communication Services Sh347.9 million and Sh863,1 million for Public Financial Management.
Animal health and afforestation gets Sh49 million and Ward Development gets Sh1.3 billion for development.
The assembly had trimmed recurrent allocation for security and safety management programme under the governor and his deputy by Sh40 million.
The Disaster Management and Coordination, has had its budget trimmed by Sh65 million.
The development allocation for Information and Communication Services under ICT has been reduced by Sh90 million while the Public Finance Management under the Finance and Economic Planning was cut by Sh220 million.
The recurrent allocation for General Administration and Support Services under the Education Sector had been reduced by Sh50 million.
The development allocation for Wards Development Fund had been reduced by Sh180 million while its recurrent allocation cut by Sh30 million.
Sonko has recommended that the above be deleted from the bill.
However, Sonko has stated that the county government is committed to ensuring the Metropolitan Services discharge the mandate assigned to them by continuing to provide the necessary support services.