Uhuru signs law on county revenue allocations

President Uhuru Kenyatta has assented to a Bill setting out the equitable share of the national revenue for each of the 47 counties.

The County Allocation of Revenue Act 2017 specifies what each county will get on the basis of the revenue sharing formula approved by Parliament.

It also sets out details of conditional allocations from the national government to each county government for the 2017/2018 financial year.

The conditional allocations that the national government gives to counties include:

• Conditional grants for level 5 hospitals.
• Special purpose grants supporting construction of county headquarters.
• Conditional allocations for development of youth polytechnics.
• Conditional allocations to compensate county health facilities for forgone use fees.
• Conditional allocations for leasing of medical equipment.
• Conditional allocations from the Road Maintenance Fuel Levy Fund, for the repair and maintenance of county roads.

Enactment of the law was delayed by a protracted tussle between the National Assembly and the Senate over the amount to be transferred to the counties, which was finally settled through mediation.

A total of Sh302 billion will be transferred to the counties as equitable share of the national revenue with calculations based on division of revenue approved by Parliament pursuant to Article 217 (7) of the Constitution.

Nairobi County will get the highest allocation of Sh15.402 billion, an increase of more than Sh1.3 billion from last year’s allocation, while Turkana gets the second highest allocation of Sh11.307 billion.

Other counties that are allocated big shares include Kiambu (Sh9.96), Kilifi (Sh9.95 billion), Kakamega (Sh9.93 billion) and Mandera (Sh9.73 billion).

The counties will receive a total of more than Sh23 billion as conditional grants from the national government.

The Act also provides a budget ceiling on recurrent expenditure for counties.

It sets out the limits of recurrent expenditure for county assemblies and county executives in each of the counties.

Related content : Big win for counties as budget allocation hits 37 per cent

Nairobi County gets the highest limit with Sh1.2 billion for the County Assembly and Sh738 million for the County Executive.

The President also signed another Act to make further provisions on the County Assembly Service Board and the County Assembly Service as established under the County Governments Act.

The Act provides a framework for the establishment of effective operation of the County Assembly Service with respect to each county.

It also provides the procedure for the appointment of members of the board and procedural functions of the Clerk.

[crp]