County bosses have threatened to shut down county governments by Thursday, June 24, if the National Treasury will not have disbursed more than Ksh 102 billion owed to them.
Speaking to journalists on Monday, June 14, in Nairobi, Council of Governors (CoG) chair Martin Wambora said the Ukur Yattani led Ministry has not only failed to comply with the Constitution, but also with its own document- cash disbursement schedule, 2020.
“If the National Treasury fails to release the funds, counties will not be able to offer basic services thereby forcing suspension of services or total shutdown by June 24,” Wambora said.
The governors further lamented that the National Government through the Treasury docket has not disbursed funds to the devolved units for the last six months, a move Wambora said has crippled operations and delivery of critical services to the residents.
“This has seen counties stigmatized for failing to offer critical services especially now in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic for what is beyond them,” said Wambora who is also the governor for Embu county.
According to the County Governments Cash Disbursement Schedule generated by the same Treasury and approved by the Senate stating that resources should be disbursed on the 15th day of every month.
The CoG boss further argued that with less than two weeks to the end of 2020/2021 financial year, the Treasury could not disburse the cash hence putting county governments at risk of being unable to clear their pending bills.
Last week during the reading of the Budget, Yattani gave county bosses a two-week ultimatum to clear all pending bills failure to which they risk not getting new funding.
Of the Ksh 102.6 billion owed to devolved units, Wambora said the National Treasury owe Ksh 3.5 billion to Nairobi County Government as arrears for the financial year 2019/2020, Ksh 2.6 billion owed to Nairobi County Government for January and another Ksh 1.4 billion for February.
Ksh.14.4 billion is also owed to 25 County Governments for March while Ksh.28.5 billion is owed to 47 County Governments for April, Ksh 25.3 billion for May, and Ksh 26.9 billion for June respectively.
