• Governor Martin Wambora at pains to explain why his administration failed to meet own-source revenue target.
• He was hard-pressed to also explain the county government's failure to utilise Sh358 million for development.
Image: EZEKIEL AMING'A
Embu Governor Martin Wambora was on Thursday at pains to explain why his administration missed the own-source revenue target by Sh455 million in 2017-18.
Appearing before the Senate’s County Public Accounts and Investment Committee (CPAIC), Wambora was hard pressed to also explain the county government's failure to utilise Sh358 million for development.
In his report, former auditor general Edward Ouko fingered the Embu county executive for collecting Sh532 million against the target of Sh892 million resulting to a revenue shortfall of Sh455 million for the year under review.
“There is a need for the county executive to re-work its budgeting mechanism to not only focus on priority areas but also tighten the internal control systems on possible revenue leakages,” the auditor's report reads in part.
Senators faulted Wambora’s administration for failing to hit the target. Kisii Senator Sam Ongeri reminded the governor that fiscal effort is one of the parameters that has been allocated one per cent in the third basis for revenue-sharing among counties.
“The issue of fiscal effort is rewarded in the shareable revenue to the extent it has been given a percentage as well as fiscal prudence, which has been allocated one per cent,” Ongeri, who chairs the committee, said.
“The auditors are raising the issue that your own-source revenue collection went down, yet you have annual budget which had costed functions assigned resources. We want to know what happened.
“How come you did not achieve your potential from the earmarked sources of revenue?”
In defense, Governor Wambora said that his administration's challenges were not under-collection because the county own-generated revenue was on a steady raise.
“However, in the year under review we could not hit our targets because our figures for revenue collection are always exaggerated and we blame the MCAs for not being realistic,” the governor said.
“Fortunately, the Controller of Budget has written to them directing them to stop pressuring the executive with high targets and unrealistic figures”.
He said over Sh900 million proposed as possible revenue collection is not achievable, saying in the last financial year Embu county raised almost the same figure with Kakamega.
“But we don’t benefit from the one per cent fiscal effort in the annual collection because our revenue figures have been exaggerated,” Wambura said.
“Our figures have been going up every time but because of exaggeration we will never benefit from the 1 percent fiscal effort."
But in a quick rejoinder, Makima ward representative Philip Nzangi asked the governor to be fair in his comments against MCAs, insisting that the figures on revenue targets are generated by the executive.
“The executive and the county assembly always have a sitting to agree on what to be done. It is wrong for the governor to impute that it is MCAs who exert pressure on them when it’s the executive that produces the budget,” Nzangi said.
He chairs the Embu County Assembly Public and Investment Committee. “We always agree on what we put before we go to the plenary. It is unfair to blame the ward reps when he (governor) knows it's an agreed process,” he added.
Siding with the MCA, Ongeri said it’s the executive that develops the budget and that it’s only taken to the assembly for concurrence.
“But if you took to them and passed the appropriation bill, the rest of the job is for you and your executives to spend that money the way its desired in the bill,” Ongeri held.
Backing the governor, John Njagi, a committee member, illustrated that the revenue for the county had risen almost double for each financial year.
It collected Sh167 million (2013-14), Sh237 million (2014-15), Sh398 (2015-16), Sh427 million (2017-18) and Sh629 (2018-19).
“We have not been sleeping on the job. We have a lot focus in enlarging our kitty to supplement what we get from the national government,” Njahi said.
“We have tried our level best owing to the fact that our county is smaller compared to our neighbours Meru and Kirinyaga.”
Edited by Henry Makori