•Governor Mike Sonko has rejected the Sh 37.7 billion Appropriation Bill , sending it back with a memorandum.
Nairobi County Governor Mike Sonko rejects Sh37.7 billion Nairobi City County Appropriation Bill, sending it back to the County Assembly with a memorandum
Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko has rejected the Sh37.7 billion Appropriation Bill, saying 'illegal' amendments were made to the budget.
He has sent the bill back to the assembly with a memorandum to be considered.
Last week, the County Assembly had approved the County’s Financial Year 2020-2021 of Sh35.5 billion after amending the Nairobi City County Appropriation Bill, 2020.
Nairobi Metropolitan Service was allocated Sh 27.1 billion while Sonko’s administration has been allocated Sh 6.4 billion to cater for the remaining functions while Sh2 billion was allocated to the County Assembly.
Following the transfer of four core functions to National Government, NMS has been allocated Sh 18.0 billion for recurrent expenditure and Sh 9.1 billion for Development.
In his memorandum, Sonko indicates that the submitted budget did not make provision for any expected unutilised cash balances at the end of FY 2019-20
"The county assembly adopted the submitted budget estimates with amendments on June 30,2020 .The proposed amendments were re-allocations and did not result to an increase of the budget from the submitted subject of sh 31.4 billion,"reads the memorandum.
"I have reviewed the bill as presented to me for assent and the total budget for FY 2020-21 Sh31.6 billon against Sh37.4 billion leaving a deficit of sh 5.8 billion which is against the Public Finance Management regulations 31 (c) which provides that the total budgeted revenue and budgeted expenditure must be balanced," Sonko said.
Sonko further outlines that the county assembly exceeded the one per cent threshold in making adjustments to various votes.