CS Henry Rotich summoned by Parliament over funds shortage

National Assembly Budget Committee has summoned Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich to appear before it Thursday to explain the current cash shortage in the country.

Rotich summoning comes in the wake of a cash crunch in the assembly that saw power supply interrupted by the Kenya Power Company and Members of Parliament missing allowances and staff members going for months without pay.

This also comes as the Council of Governors, through its chair Peter Munya, warned that it will move to court over the prolonged delay in releasing funds for the counties, a delay they say has threatened the operations of the county governments.

Munya associated the delayed disbursement of funds to the counties with the diversion of the same to other projects that had not been budgeted for by the national government.

According to Munya, the prolonged delayed in disbursement of funds to the counties raises a lot of questions.

Munya, who is also Meru County Governor, says that the national government has been silent on the delay despite the governors raising the issue with top offices including that of the president and the Senate

He accused the national government of frustrating devolution by denying counties funds and allegedly trying to take back devolved functions such as health.

Remarks by Munya come barely two weeks after governors said that only one county had received its financial allocation from the National Treasury as of September 20th, 2015.

In a letter to the Senate, governors accused the national government of deliberately delaying the funds and therefore derailing development programmes.

The funds disbursements wars, pitting the national and county governments, are not new as the two factions have been in constant fights since 2013 when the new system of governance took effect.

The financial crisis has seen counties’ staff down tools on several occasions with the most affected sector being the health one.

Two months ago, Munya linked the industrial actions by nurses in several counties to an alleged ploy by the national government to take back the function.