Treasury releases Ksh.52.2 billion to counties

The National Treasury has released Ksh.52.2 billion to counties as part of the equitable share of revenues covering the months of July and August.

This comes as the first exchequer disbursement in the 2020/21 fiscal year and follows the delayed agreement by Senate on the basis of the division of revenues to the units.

The County Allocation of Revenue Bill (CARB) 2020, was, for instance, passed three months after the start of the financial year on October 6 and was assented to by President Uhuru Kenyatta on October 8 before being gazetted on Monday.

The release of the funds is expected to mark a sign of relief to counties which had been staring at a cash-crunch with staff arrears going unpaid along with other expenditures.

County governments are expected to receive a combined share of Ksh.363.9 billion in the year to June 30, 2021 including Ksh.316.5 billion in drawings from the equitable share.

The National Treasury expects the devolved units to give priority to the settlement of pending bills as they begin withdrawing their respective shares from the disbursement.

Treasury further hopes Parliament will search for a solution to prevent the occurrence of future delays to disbursements.

“It is our hope that the Senate and the National Assembly will find a permanent solution to this matter to avoid this unfortunate stalemate in the future,” the Treasury noted.