Kakamega MCAs to approve Sh110 million Covid-19 budget

The Kakamega county assembly will next Tuesday hold a special sitting to discuss a supplementary budget to fight the coronavirus.  

The assembly has been on forced recess occasioned by the outbreak of Covid-19 and was set to resume sittings on April 28.

Speaker Morris Buluma adjourned the House on March 17 for 14 days after one of the members who visited Britain failed to self-quarantine as required on return. Buluma later extended the recess to April 28.

The session will be attended by only 30 of the assembly's 89 MCAs because of the one-metre social distancing requirement to avoid the spread of Covid-19.

The agenda of the session will be to discuss the second and final supplementary budget to raise the Sh110 million announced by Governor Wycliffe Oparanya on March 16 to fight the virus.

Deputy speaker Soita Kasaya said the amount will be raised by raiding mostly the recurrent budget, as most projects are ongoing.

"There are ongoing development programmes like the referral hospital, upgrading of Bukhungu Stadium and construction of bitumen roads, which are flagship projects," he said.

Some of the money that will be shifted is on travel and seminars for the assembly and executive.

"Kakamega does not have money. We may not even raise Sh100 million from the recurrent budget. However, we’ll look at the possibilities of some of them absorbing the money budgeted for them within the remaining period in this financial year and if it is apparent they can’t, then shift part of the cash," he said.

The membership for the session will comprise the house leadership and a section of the committee membership in relation to the business of the day.

Kasaya said a nurse would also be present to screen the members before entering the chambers. The chambers will be fumigated before the session, Kasaya said.

Kasaya said the assembly will be sitting once a week until the current pandemic is contained fully.

Edited by Henry Makori