Kenya: Parliament Urged to Implement Proportionate Spending in the National, County Govts

Nairobi — The Institute of Economic Affairs(IEA) has called on Parliament to ensure equal spending proportionality is maintained for both the national and county governments.

Speaking during a forum held today on Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations in Kenya, Economist at IEA Kenya Noah Wamalwa noted that the national government has been placing a higher priority on its programs than on supporting counties.

Wamalwa noted that this phenomenon has seen total spending at the county level decline as a ratio of GDP to about 2.8 percent in 2019/20 from 4 percent of GDP in 2014/15 with development programs disproportionately affected.

IEA also called for on the Senate and the National Assembly to ensure that The National Treasury matches the revenue disbursement schedule with the revenue forecasts.

“To improve future development outcomes County governments should equally look in-wards and address other multiple factors including administrative issues that disproportionately affect execution of development budget,” IEA said.

The organization also called on the Office of the Controller of Budget in conjunction with the National Treasury and the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) to initiate reforms towards digitalization and decentralization as well as minimizing requirements for the process of formal requisition of monthly exchequer issues.