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Citizen Weekly

Sunday 25 January 2015

Overspending in Nakuru county budget

Nakuru county overspent on its recurrent expenditure during the first quarter of the current financial year.
According to impeccable sources, the county used 103.6pc of the funds released for the recurrent activities.
Due to the weak budget controls and planning by the county, development expenditure was reduced to 73.9pc of the funds meant for development projects.
The county’s recurrent expenditure for the first quarter of the FY 2014/15 represented an absorption rate of 23.6pc of the annual budget which was an increase from an absorption rate of 4.03pc realised in the first quarter of FY2013/2014.
The county spent Sh948.21 million on personnel emolument which is equivalent to 59.3pc of the total recurrent expenditure and Sh651.78 million on operations and maintenance expenditures which was 40.7pc of the total expenditure for the period.
Expenditure on domestic and foreign travel amounted to Sh56.55 million in the financial year 2014/15 first quarter compared to Sh22.85 million in the same period in the last financial year.
The county budget records breakdown shows that it spent Sh279.5 million on general operations and maintenance.
Drugs and vaccine took Sh77 million while bursary and other education scholarships took Sh55 million as committee meetings expenditure consumed Sh42 million in the same financial period.
Other county expenditures during the first quarter of the year were legal fees Sh41 million, printing and stationary Sh30 million, publications and other periodicals Sh21 million while county buildings maintenance took Sh19 million.
The discrepancies on the county budget during the first quarter of the FY 2014/15 basing on the laid down regulations has been attributed to some failures by the county.
The county budget letdown is said to have been as a result of the county’s overlooking of proper development projects monitoring and evaluation framework, failure to enforce revenue targets and lack of establishment of an internal audit committee.
Due to the above county failures, our source further divulged that since the county inception and during this financial year’s first quarter, there has been inadequate reporting on the status on the ongoing projects.
Following the same setbacks, the county is also being blamed of inadequate enforcements on its revenue collection as stipulated by the existing legislations.
Nakuru county is yet to put the monitoring and evaluation framework despite that it is a requirement of the Public Finance Management Act 2012.
Over Sh11 billion was earmarked for the Nakuru county budget for this financial year 2014/15. The total budget is expected to be financed by Sh7.08 billion from the national equitable share, Sh3.22 billion from local revenue sources and Sh906.25 million projected balance brought forward from the last financial year.
Other sources for the Nakuru county FY 2014/15 budget includes Sh317.84 million which is a conditional grant for level five hospitals and Sh22.88 million grant from Danida meant for health support.

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