We wont be able to pay county salaries by July 1, COG warns

We wont be able to pay county salaries by July 1, COG warns

The Council of Governors has warned that they will be unable to pay salaries by July 1 over deduction of Ksh.9billion from the shareable revenue of counties.

A statement from the COG to newsrooms on Friday faulted the National Assembly for going on recess without resolving the impasse.

“We urge the Senate and the National Assembly to resolve this issue with urgency to mitigate the impending shutdown,” the statement from COG Chairman Wycliffe Oparanya reads.

The governors further warn that they also will be unable to pay county contractors and offer other services as is required.

This comes a day after the National Treasury defended its role during a probe by the Senate on the misallocation of the funds.

The Kiambu County Government had also appeared before the Senate Committee on Public Accounts and Investments when it emerged that money from 11 counties was erroneously allocated to national government functions.

Treasury officials blamed county governments for their alleged failure to follow procedures for disclosure of expenditure and budget execution.

However in a rebuttal on Friday, the Council of Governors shifted the blame to the National Treasury and Auditor General accusing them of not being forthright about the anomalies.

“The National Treasury has admitted in their statement that the budget execution reports by prorammes and sub-programmes by 11 counties had erroneous descriptions reflecting typical national government programmes and sub-programmes rather than those that the county governments actually budgeted and spent funds against,” the COG statement reads.

The Auditor General was also faulted for not raising the alarm to county governments when he discovered the anomaly.

Oparanya in his statement said the COG Liasion and Management Committee held a meeting in Mombasa on Friday and resolved that the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) should urgently probe the matter.

According to them, the DCI is the only independent institution that can unearth what transpired between the county governments, the National Treasury and the office of the Auditor General.

Tags:

waititu Kiambu County Government Council of Governors counties budget

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