We will not support Senate for frustrating us, Munya

The Council of Governors has accused the Senate of frustrating devolution by tampering with counties’ expenditures.

Council of Governors Chair Peter Munya says that the Senate is frustrating devolution by taking money meant for development and transferring it to recurrent expenditure.

Munya says that the Senate ignored a High Court’s opinion to have the county governments set ceilings for recurrent expenditure and went ahead to allocate more funds to the County Assemblies by slicing what was meant for development.

“It is very unfortunate that the Senate has ignored a court’s advisory opinion allowing county governments to set expenditure ceilings for the County Assemblies,” said Munya.

“What this means is that there is less money for development and more and more international trips by the Members of the County Assemblies will now be seen since they can spend much more than we (counties) had set.”

He said that this will lead to unchecked expenditure that will affect the overall development agenda of the governors across the country.

“We can now see that the Senate has no interest in protecting the people of Kenya by checking expenditure or devolution,” he added.

He revealed that the Council of Governors had filed a case in the Constitutional Court to seeking to strengthen the Senate by giving it more responsibilities, which he now says they (Governors) will withdraw.

“We will now drop the case we had filed in court seeking to strengthen the Senate. If they are not supporting us, we also have no business in supporting them,” noted Munya.

Munya’s revelation came even as counties accuse the national government of failing to remit funds to the counties necessary for their operations.

The Council of Governors Chair said that this is a violation of human rights as the employees and county residents need these funds for development.

“The national government has unnecessarily delayed funds meant for salaries and county operations thereby incapacitating us,” said Munya.

He was speaking during the launch of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) Strategic Plan 2015/18.