Siaya County Assembly rejects Sh462 million El Nino budget

The Siaya County Assembly has rejected the county government’s El-Nino preparedness contingency plan and budget of Sh462 million, arguing that it was inflated.

This follows the findings of the county assembly’s Roads and Public Works Committee Report, which established that the executive had exaggerated its budget on preparations to mitigate the impending disaster that would be caused by the rains in the region.

In the report tabled on the floor of the assembly by the Roads and Public Works Committee chairman, Christopher Apiyo Apiyo, it was found that the county government had no measures in place to mitigate the probable destruction that would be caused by the El-Nino phenomenon.

Apiyo further informed the House that what the ambitious contingency plan had an exaggerated budget of a whooping Sh462 million, an amount that is enough to run the county assembly for three quarters in a Fiscal year.

In their report, the committee said that the budget was exceptionally inflated and seemed to be a mega scam in waiting, arguing that they did not see the need for allocating Sh3 million towards the purchase and printing of T-shirts and fliers, Sh75,000 towards purchase of paper caps and Sh120,000 for purchase of airtime.

The committee had also allocated Sh2.4 million towards payment of allowances, Sh2 million for the purchase of firewood, Sh7.6 million for animal feeds among other items that they could not explain.

Apiyo Apiyo’s committee questioned why the disaster management team had differently budgeted for water treatment chemicals including Pur, Aqua Tabs, chlorine granules and Water Guard all valued at Sh21 million yet they all do the same function.

The county assembly gave the Disaster Management Committee seven days to come up with a new budget not exceeding Sh10 million as budgeted for in the in the Financial Year 2015/2016, with inbuilt accounting and auditing systems and clear lines of duties in the implementation schedule.

They further stated that in case of any deficit in the allocated money, the additional funding should then be sourced through the county’s supplementary budget which must also be brought to the county assembly for adoption.