The county government of Kakamega has proposed a budget of Sh18.2 billion in the 2025-2026 financial year, Sh1 billion more than its expenditure this financial year.
The estimates comprise Sh12 billion recurrent expenditure, translating into 66.21 per cent, and Sh6.1 billion or 33.79 per cent development expenditure.
Public service and county administration has been allocated the lion’s share of Sh 7.4 billion, followed by roads, public works and energy with Sh 1.7 billion and health services allocated Sh1.3 billion.
The health budget reflects a Sh400 million cut from Sh1.7 billion in the current financial year.
Other allocations are finance and economic planning (Sh1.1 billion), water, environment and natural resources (Sh902,374,86)7; trade, industrialisation and tourism (Sh744,911,671), while social services, youth and sports got Sh742,059,121.
Agriculture, livestock, fisheries and cooperatives has been allocated Sh708,043,568; education, science and technology (Sh680,450,025), lands, housing, urban areas and physical planning (Sh636,407,768), office of the governor (Sh338,674,740), ICT, e-government and communication (Sh195,005,660) while the County Public Service Board has been allocated Sh26,359,495.
The county assembly has been allocated Sh1.4 billion.
The county plans to raise Sh2.2 billion own revenue, Sh13,579,038,225 from the equitable share allocation, Sh1,580,216,252 from conditional grants from development partners and national government, and Sh794,706,578 balance brought forward from the equitable share to fund its ambitious budget.
The proposed expenditure estimates were subjected to public participation on Thursday last week.
County assembly budget committee chairman Gildon Shioso said the huge allocation to public service and county administration includes Sh6.2 billion for salaries across all departments.
County finance executive Benjamin Andama said the cut in the health budget won’t affect services. He said the county plans to rely more on own source revenue to fund operations of the sensitive docket.
Andama said the decision is meant to avoid disruption of services by the erratic disbursement of shareable revenue from the National Treasury.
“We also intend to utilise the Facility Improvement Fund that has ring-fenced revenue generated by health facilities,” he said.
The budget cuts come at a time the county has sought intervention by the national government to complete and operationalise the stalled Sh6.2 billion Kakamega County Teaching and Referral Hospital.
