Sonko: Why I refused to sign the 2020/2021 Appropriation Bill

Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko has defended his refusal to sign the 2020/2021 Appropriation Bill, saying he only followed the law.

Sonko dismissed claims that he was opposed to development, saying the budget process needs to be legitimate and not a punitive exercise targetting his government.

Sonko now wants the County Assembly to review allocations to the Education, Disaster, Inspectorate, and Sports departments.

He picked an issue with a budget cut on functions which are still being run by the Nairobi County Government saying the move was against already laid plans in the County Fiscal Strategy Paper for the 2020/21 financial year.

He also wondered why the initial budget prepared with the input of the Finance department was ignored and last-minute changes made to it.

“The MCAs, through the Finance Budget and Appropriation Committee, had made a good document which we had all agreed on but unfortunately some people came in with their own changes,” Sonko said.

He revealed that several sectors under his office have lost Ksh.1 billion.

The Governor who has constantly differed with the Nairobi Metropolitan Service further said Ksh.500M was slashed from the Education Department.

He lamented that his administration would no longer be able to build more stadiums or set up vocational training.

On the ongoing demolitions across the city, he said the government is right to undertake development programs but called for humanness when evicting people.

He underlined the need to compensate and move people in a dignified manner without leaving them with no place to call home.

“The law that allows the government to move people is the same law that calls for protection of human rights and demands that we compensate them,”

The Public Finance Management (PFM) Act stipulates that from the financial year 2014/15 onwards counties should prepare their budgets in a program-based format.

The approved Program-Based Budget (PBB) is a critical document when read together with county budget implementation reports, citizens can track budget implementation against approved expenditure during the course of the year.