Recently, City Hall has been on spot over various scandals running from fraudulent tenders to revenue collections! Should we blame Governor Mike Sonko? Well, the City Hall is once again in the spotlight for spending over Sh1.2 billion more than the funds approved by the Controller of Budget (CoB).
Nairobi County MCAs have raised concerns on how the county overspent by a colossal amount yet it is supposed to keep collected revenue as County Revenue Fund (CRF).
Article 207 of the Constitution requires that county governments deposit own source revenue collection into the CRF account.
It was revealed before the County Assembly’s Budget and Appropriations committee that the county government, in the first quarter of the 2018/2019 financial year covering between July and September, 2018, spent Sh4.81 billion for its operations although they received only Sh3.52 billion from the County Revenue Fund as approved by CoB.
The difference was Sh1.31 billion representing 136.4 percent of the totals funds released by CoB for the county’s operations. Out of the operations expenditure, a total of Sh4.27 billion was spent on recurrent activities while a paltry Sh534.97 million went towards development activities.
The MCAs now want the Executive to explain where City Hall got the billions from, accusing them of spending at source, which is against the law.
The oversight committee chair Robert Mbatia said overspending shows the executive has money “hanging around” contrary to claims by Governor Mike Sonko that the county’s revenues have always been deposited directly to Central Bank, since he came into office in 2017.