In the recent past, Kericho County Senator Aaron Cheruiyot presented a bill in the senate seeking to dissolve Nairobi County and return its operations to the National government, a move that was heavily opposed by several leaders. Did you support the move? Well, this might however affect Elgeyo Marakwet County instead! The County Governor Alex Tolgos protested against his county’s underfunding.
Tolgos threatened to push for the dissolution of the county and have its functions returned under the national government due to serious financial problems.
Tolgos says the formula used by the Commission on Revenue Allocation (CRA) to distribute county revenue led to the allocation of little resources to small counties including Elgeyo Marakwet, Tharaka Nithi and Isiolo among others.
“We have been following up on this matter so that the formula is reviewed without success. If it persists to 2022 we will have this county dissolved,” said Tolgos.
He said residents of the county deserve development like other regions but the money received is too little and mostly covers recurrent expenditure.
“Like now we have the problem of Hepatitis B in our county. We urgently need more than Sh500 million for testing and vaccination.
That amount is more than half of the funds we get for development,” Tolgos said.
He said Elgeyo Marakwet cannot operate effectively without proper funding.
Tolgos was speaking in his county on Sunday. He spoke in the presence of Finance CS Henry Rotich.
“We are urging you like the CS in charge of finance to help us have this issue resolved. We have been lamenting always about underfunding and we won’t allow this to go on until 2022”, said Tolgos.
The county receives about Sh3 billion annually from Treasury and much of the money goes to paying salaries and operating costs.
It collects less than Sh200 million from internal revenue annually.
Tolgos says the region which is partly semi-arid requires resources to improve on water supply and key projects that will uplift the lives of residents.
Tolgos, however, thanked the national government for intervening to help deal with the Hepatatis B outbreak in his county.