Mombasa Governor Hassan Joho wants an official residence built for him and his deputy William Kingi.
The details are contained in a medium-term draft budget for the next financial year.
The budget states that the construction will be done in two phases but curiously, it fails to list the exact amount to be spent.
However, according to departmental budget, the executive is to get Sh427 million – Sh84.4 million for development and Sh387.9 million for total operations and maintenance.
The budget lists the purchase of a county courtesy bus and media equipment as other developments the executive will enjoy in the first financial year of Joho’s last term.
Assembly Finance chairman Mohamed Hatimi said the proposed amount is "very little" as the
Commission for Revenue Allocation has put a spending ceiling.
"What we are using is far much less compared to other counties," he said.
Joho has been living in a private home for the last five years.
There was a storm in 2013 when reports emerged he wanted a Sh390 million official residence.
The figure was against “refurbishment of residential buildings (creditors)” contained in a budget document. A second row featured the same figure for “purchase of buildings”.
Hatimi said the figures were exaggerated by former Senator Hassan Omar who wanted political capital.
“That was propaganda. We are very economical,” he said.
In September 2016, the Mombasa governmenttold
Omar to show residents the alleged Sh390 million residence Joho was putting up for himself.
Omar said the money was set aside in that year's Sh9.9 billion budget but that the Governor didn't a residence while residents lived in squalor.
"We all know the Governor does not have an official residence but Sh390 million is a lot of money. Mombasa's economy does not allow such waste," he said.
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Nyeri will spend Sh200 million to build the governor’s home while Kilifi spent Sh140 million for Amason Kingi’s residence.
In 2015, the Meru Governor had planned for a Sh300 million home.
But according to budget estimates for the year starting July, two palatial homes worth Sh40 million each will be constructed for Governor Kiraitu Murungi and his deputy.
Nakuru county budgeted Sh40 million for the construction of the governor’s residence. The initial cost was Sh100m.
Kajiado’s cost was Sh61.6 million while Kwale’s was placed at Sh70 million.
When most constructions kicked off, there were no guidelines on how much money governors should spend to construct their residences and offices.
Some county bosses complained Transition Authority had allocated just Sh60 million during the transition period for their offices and residence, which was not enough.
Following a string of construction and purchase of unnecessary properties at the county level whose
costs
had been inflated, CRA in 2015
barred county from constructing new offices and
governors'
residences.
CRA
said counties can spend on the non-core projects from 2018.
The Mombasa budget put total expenditure at Sh12 billion, development getting Sh4 billion with personnel (Sh5 billion), total operations and maintenance (Sh3.9 billion) and recurrent (Sh8.9 billion) also factored.
The budget is at the public participation stage.