President Ruto Meets With Governors Amid Row Over County Funds
Written by Inka FM on 10 February 2023
- The two-day meeting dubbed the Ninth National and County Government Coordinating Summit will see the head of state address the issues surrounding the financial crisis in the country.
President William Ruto is on Friday expected to hold a meeting with all county governors amid a financial stand-off between the county heads and the government.
The two-day meeting in Naivasha, Nakuru County dubbed the Ninth National and County Government Coordinating Summit will see the head of state address the issues surrounding the financial crisis in the country.
Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua, Cabinet and Principal Secretaries are also expected to grace the conference.
Other subject matters expected to be discussed include constitutional affairs, devolution of functions and resources, critical bills concerning county governments, audit reports and court cases between the two levels of government.
The meeting comes barely a week after DP Gachagua told off the county bosses over their demands to have county allocation increased from Ksh.370 billion to Ksh.425 billion.
The DP said the President Ruto-led administration was incapable of meeting their demands and would only allocate between Ksh. 380 and Ksh.385 billion.
“They are asking for Ksh.425 billion. SRC is saying that in our scheme of mathematics, you can give Ksh.407 billion. The national government is saying that is good, Ksh.407 billion is even better, we can give it to you but we don’t have it, we only have Ksh.380 billion,” Gachagua said.
“So, if you want to hang us, we are helpless! If you want to remove our trousers and whip us on the buttocks, go ahead, we don’t have the money! Na sisi ni watu wa kuongea ukweli. What we don’t want to do is to cheat governors that we will give them money which we don’t have.”
The governors who have been decrying ballooning debts in counties and a backlog of payments have been pushing for the increase to allow them to clear the pending bills and facilitate service delivery to Kenyans.
