NAIROBI, Kenya, Mar 1 – Devolved Units have been put on the limelight for derailing development by using 60 percent of their budgets on recurrent expenditure which mainly involves payment of salaries and wages.
In a span of six months 21 county governments spent less than 10 percent of their revenue on development projects.
The details were released in the latest budget implementation review report for the first half of the 2023-24 financial year between July1 and October 31, 2023.
The Controller of Budget Margaret Nyakang’o revealed details of how Kisii, Nairobi, Machakos, West Pokot and Nyandarua absorbed the least percentage of their budgets at 2.9 per cent, 3.3 per cent, 3.5 per cent, 8.7 percent and 7.0 percent respectively on development.
“The development expenditure during the period under review amounted to Sh24.81 billion translating to an absorption rate of 12.2 per cent of the annual FY 2023-24 development budget of Sh203.11 billion,” the report read.
Others are Nyeri at 6.4 percent, Samburu at 5.2 percent, Taita Taveta at 4.4 percent, Makueni at 7.1 percent, Meru at 9.8 percent and Kericho at 7.6 percent.
Baringo spent 5.8 percent, Lamu at 7.5 percent, Isiolo at 9.7 percent and Kajiado at 8.7 percent.
On the other hand, Narok, Bomet, Uasin Gishu, Laikipia and Marsabit Counties had the highest absorption rates of their respective approved development budgets at 52.4 per cent, 27.1 per cent, 27.0 per cent, 22.5 per cent and 21.7 per cent respectively.
The report highlighted the ballooning wage bill in the devolved units, the counties spent Sh98.13 billion or 58 percent of their revenues on personnel emoluments.
Nairobi spent the highest amount of their budgets on personnel emolument.
The county spent Sh7.49 billion of their total expenditure of Sh10.81 billion on personnel emolument.
Nakuru spent Sh3.63 billion on personnel emolument followed by Machakos (Sh3.3 billion), Turkana (Sh3.03 billion), Kitui (Sh2.96 billion), Baringo (Sh3.83 billion) and Kiambu (Sh3.68 billion).
“The Control of Budget recommends that County Governments should ensure that expenditure on personnel emoluments is contained at sustainable levels and in compliance with Regulation 25 (1) (b) of the Public Finance Management (County Governments) Regulations, 2015,” the report states.
“Further, the County Public Service Boards are advised to fast-track the acquisition of Unifed Personnel Numbers for their staff and ensure payroll is processed through the prescribed Government system,” it adds.
The report shows that Sh7.06 billion of the payrolls was processed manually and outside the government payroll system which accounts for 7 per cent of the total wage bills.
“This contradicts the Government policy that requires salaries to be processed through the IPPD system. The manual payroll is prone to abuse and may lead to the loss of public funds where there is a lack of proper controls,” Nyakang’o said.