Commission on Revenue Allocation wants counties allocated more funds

The Commission on Revenue Allocation now wants the national government to allocate 377.5 billion shillings to counties in the next national budget.

This is equivalent to 35 percent of the shareable revenue.

The proposed allocation, if effected, will denote a 36 percent increase in the allocation to the 47 counties.

In a statement, CRA particularly called for an increase in the allocation to county governments for the construction and rehabilitation of county roads.

The commission says the construction of roads in the counties has been grossly underfunded because of the national government’s insistence on allocating resources to the Kenya Rural Roads Authority (KERRA) and the Kenya Urban Roads Authority (KURA).

The commission has recommended that 27.79 billion shillings currently allocated to other roads under the 2015/2016 budget be transferred to counties.

On health, CRA wants the national government to increase its allocation to level five hospitals to 4.1 billion shillings and 4.9 billion shillings to free maternal health care.

The commission further says that “It is important that each county government establishes an Emergency Fund to manage urgent and unforeseen expenditure needs at the county level.”

On Village polytechnics, the commission notes that “they are devolved functions assigned to county governments under the Fourth Schedule and although, the national government has historically spent more than 20 percent of its overall budget on education, little has been invested in financing of village polytechnics which are essential in developing skills of the youths who don’t transit to higher institutions of learning. Village polytechnics if well equipped, are good centres of excellence to empower the youth with skills to generate employment opportunities.”

The Commission, therefore, recommends that county governments be allocated a conditional grant of Ksh 6,300 million from the national government share to build, equip and or renovate the village polytechnics. The grant will be shared among all the counties based on the approved revenue sharing formula.