Explain Sh1.2bn overspent, MCAs tell Mike Sonko

When it rains, it pours at City Hall as the county executive is once again on the spot for spending over Sh1.2 billion more than the funds requisitioned for and approved by the Controller of Budget (COB).

Nairobi MCAs on Thursday demanded that City Hall explain how the county overspend such a huge amount of money yet the governor claims all revenues are deposited in the County Revenue Fund (CRF).

Article 207 of the Constitution requires that county governments deposit their revenue collections into the CRF account.

But 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, between July and September, 2018, spent Sh4.81 billion for operations although they received only Sh3.52 billion from the CRF as approved by COB.

The county spent Sh4.27 billion on recurrent expenditure while a paltry Sh534.97 million went to development projects.

Ward representatives want to know where the county got the extra Sh1.2 billion from, a sum that largely went to recurrent expenditure.

The oversight committee chairman Robert Mbatia said that the assembly is worried about the executive’s overspending.

They say overspending reveals that the county has funds that have not been deposited in the bank contrary to Governor Mike Sonko’s assertion, who has always claimed that the county’s revenue is directly deposited in the Central Bank.

“We are worried by the big variance between the actual money from the exchequer and what was actually spent. The difference might be the money that they do not sweep to the bank. We want to know where that money is coming from,” said Mr Mbatia on Thursday.

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