A report from the Controller of Budget for the year 2018/2019 has revealed that county governments are allocating little or nothing for development, leaving the 47 devolved units at the mercy of the national government in terms of development projects.
The report further reveals that Members of County Assembly and county staff have been benefiting from huge allowances and foreign trips instead.
A total of Ksh.50.9 billion was allocated to counties, but according to the report, only Ksh.3.5 billion was used for development across all the 47 counties while the remaining Ksh.47.4 billion was channeled to various accounts to cater for personal emoluments among other expenses.
Baringo County under Governor Stanely Kiptis who took over from Benjamin Cheboi allocated a paltry Ksh.575 million on personal emoluments and nothing was allocated for development.
Garissa’s Ali Korane also allocated zero shillings for development in the period under review, despite receiving Ksh.1.08 billion.
Kiraitu Murungi’s Meru County also did not allocate a single cent to development but spent 95 percent of its Ksh.1.7 billion allocation on recurrent expenditure.
Council of Governors chair Wycliffe Oparanya, has also been exposed by the controller of budget report after allocating only 1 percent of the Ksh.1.6 billion to development.
According to the document seen by Citizen TV, only 74 million was allocated to develop Kakamega County while the giant share was allocated to cater for salaries and other county operations.
Also coming under the spotlight is Kiambu’s Ferdinand Waititu, for allocating only Ksh.56 million to development while salaries and county operations gobbled up the rest of the county’s Ksh.1.6 billion allocation.
Other counties that incurred zero shillings on development include Machakos, Marsabit, Nyandarua and Mombasa.
Out of the 47 counties, only Narok County spent a satisfactory amount of money on development.
According to the report, the Samuel ole Tunai led county spent Ksh.847 million on development last year, representing 25 percent of the Ksh.3.2 billion shillings annual development vote.