By Antynet Ford
Nairobi City County has been dealt a heavy blow after the Office of the Controller of Budget (COB) cut down its supplementary budget.
COB Margaret Nyakang’o said the scrapping and reduction was after the Sakaja-led administration failed to adhere to the Public Management Finance Act 2012.
In its submission, Nairobi had amended the recurrent expenditure for the County Public Service Board increasing it by Sh3.5 million from Sh127 million.
Upon examination, the COB slashed the Public Service Board budget by Sh10 million.
Nyakang’o also reduced the development budget by Sh10 million from Sh20 million.
The agricultural development budget for the city county was also reduced from Sh96.3 million to Sh27.7 million.
Nairobi City County Assembly development budget was also slashed from Sh905 million to Sh300 million out of the current allocation of Sh2.4 billion for the ending 2023/2024 Financial Year.
Further, the COB scrapped Sh 100 million allocated for the development of the Nairobi Revenue Authority.
This is the sector mandated for the collection of Sh 20 billion own source revenue for the ending financial year.
She revised the Inclusivity, Public Participation, and Citizen Engagement sector budget leaving them with 1.8 billion after slashing Sh 470 million though while passing the supplementary budget, the assembly had slashed it by Sh175 million.
Innovation and Digital economy has also been equally affected as the COB reduced its expenditure budget from Sh 9.7 million.
The budget for the Ward Development Fund has equally been reduced by Sh655 million, leaving the sector with Sh1.3 billion, and not Sh1.96 billion as captured in the ending year.
The development budget in the Boroughs and Public Administration sector has been slashed from Sh1.19 billion to Sh748 million.
The health department has also not been spared by Controller of Budget, downgrading Sakaja’s development budget from Sh1.13 billion to Sh519 million.
The Mobility and Works sector has also been reduced from Sh3.3 billion to Sh1.7 billion.
According to the Controller of Budget, the reallocation of funds in the supplementary budget exceeded the ten per cent limit of the total expenditure approved for some programs or sub-votes, which contravenes Section 154(2) (c) of the PFM Act.
The Public Finance Act 2012 provides specific guidelines on how the budget variations are to be conducted legally.
The Act stipulates that the supplementary budget is required when there is a need to reallocate funds to different areas other than those planned.
Nyakang’o said that some of the approvals were made without necessary approvals from the County treasury, and in some cases, the County Assembly was not properly informed or did not approve the changes.
The city administrator has also been spotted for requesting relocation in some sectors without detailed explanations or justifications as required by Section 154(2) (b) of the PFM Act.
While defending the Supplementary Budgets after being flagged by the Controller of Budget, County Executive Committee Member for Finance and Planning Charles Kerich stated that budget estimates for the FY 2023/24 were submitted to among others make the budget alive to the realities of revenue inflows, and budget absorption among other factors.
He added that the County Assembly budget was reduced after an agreement with the assembly for the executive to provide land for the construction of an administration block for the assembly.
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“The budget for the County Assembly was reduced as a result of an agreement with the County Government to provide land for construction of the administration block. The cost of acquisition of land and other attendant costs were hence knocked off the budget.” The CEC stated.