The Office of the Controller of Budgets has declined financial requests worth Ksh.3.2 billion from over 20 county governments.
A new report from the Controller of Budgets however cites various factors that have contributed to these delays.
This as the tussle between county governments and the National Treasury over the delayed disbursement of funds continues to be blamed for the paralysis in key operations in counties.
These include irregular diversion of funds meant for salaries to operations expenses, wrong classification of expenditure where recurrent expenditure items are wrongly factored under the development budget, unjustified high wage bill, irregularities in imprest requests, expenditure on unapproved items (activities/projects) and on foreign trips not authorized by the Ministry of Devolution.
Narok County, for instance, had the largest sum of declined approvals adding up to Ksh.910 million.
The Controller of Budgets declined a Ksh.243.3 million application for hiring ambulances, Ksh.203.4 million for payments which appeared rounded off, and Ksh.130 million application for bulk transfers which lacked a clear work plan.
In Nairobi County, Ksh.525 million worth of exchequer requests were declined, out of which Ksh.275 million application was declined due to an erroneous classification of car loans and the mortgage fund as development expenditure.
A further Ksh.112.4 million was declined owing to inability to provide a breakdown of the specific pending bill pay-outs.
Nakuru County was denied part of its application worth Ksh.452 million. In one of the declined applications worth Ksh.215 million, LAPFUND pending bills was wrongly classified as development expenditure.
In another application worth Ksh.170 million, car reimbursement claims were not supported by evidence of motor vehicle purchase and proof of ownership.
In Kisii County, Ksh.208 million worth of applications were declined.
Besides the mischief in some counties, the Controller of Budgets has however noted a high success rate in approvals after having approved Ksh.179.6 billion worth of exchequer requisitions, out of the over Ksh.182.8 billion worth of requests received from counties as at January 31, 2023.
In order to improve the approval rate of requisitions, the Controller of Budgets is recommending: training of staff responsible for exchequer requisitions, especially in Narok, Nakuru, Nairobi, Murang’a and Bungoma counties, which have the highest rate of declined approvals.
Other recommendations include automation of exchequer releases to enhance efficiency as well as continuous capacity building of the Office of Controller of Budget staff.
