Counties are staring at diving deeper into financial crisis after senators and their counterparts at the National Assembly proceeded on a month-long recess without reaching a consensus on the controversial division of revenue bill.
Senators adopted the bill on Wednesday with amendments allocating 335 billion shillings to counties from the Sh 316 billion proposed by the National Assembly.
Members of the National Assembly on Thursday moved to sidestep the fallout by introducing amendments to the Public Finance Management Act.
The Division of Revenue bill is once again headed to a mediation process. The ripple effect of the supremacy wars between the Senate and the National Assembly threatening to destabilize the service delivery in the counties.
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With some counties already operating on a bare minimum, the month-long recess by Parliament may do little to ease the financial crunch after Senate amended the National Assembly’s version of the Division of revenue bill.
In the bill whose publication period was reduced to seven days, the Budget and Appropriation Committee proposes that the Senate divides the guaranteed fifteen percent among the county governments in the event that the division of revenue bill has not been passed by the tenth day of June.
The Budget and Appropriation Committee has in the meantime defended the amendments, allaying fears that the bill may be a scheme to replace the division of revenue bill contemplated by the constitution.