In Financial year 2019/20, Nyamira County had an approved budget of Ksh. 7 billion out of which Ksh. 1.9 billion and Ksh. 5.05 billion were development and recurrent expenditures respectively.
Nyamira County expected to receive Ksh. 4.81 billion as the equitable share of revenue raised nationally, Ksh. 786 million as total conditional grants and was planning to raise Ksh. 250 million from own sources of revenue. The county had Ksh. 1.15 billion as balance brought forward from the FY 2018/2019.
Performance
The county received Ksh. 4.39 billion in form of equitable share of revenue raised nationally, Ksh. 553 million as total conditional grants and raised Ksh. 185.57 million from own sources of revenue.
In total Nyamira County had Ksh. 6.29 billion available for expenditure during FY 2019/2020.
Covid-19 Support
In terms of Covid-19 response, the county received Ksh. 59.7 million as Covid-19 support and an additional Ksh. 46.8 million as Covid-19 support for Covid-19 support for healthcare workers. Further, DANIDA provided Ksh. 5.3 million for Covid-19 as a conditional grant.
The county’s development budget absorption was 61.5 percent while that of recurrent budget stood at 90.6 percent.
Pending bills
Just like out counties, Nyamira County was not left behind in terms of pending bills. The county owes contractors a total of Ksh. 51.1 million as at June 30, 2020.
Major recurrent expenditures in FY 2019/20
A total Ksh. 319 million was spent on domestic travel, Ksh. 110 million on emergencies, Ksh. 103.4 on medical insurance, Ksh. 59.81 million on medical drugs and Ksh. 64.7 million on travelling to foreign countries for official government duty by the county assembly and the executive.
Examples of development projects implemented in 2019/20
- Completion of county headquarters – Ksh. 119 million;
- Hire of heavy equipment for road construction – Ksh. 73 million;
- Construction and completion of Manga Stadium – Ksh. 36 million;
- Solar powered streetlights – Ksh. 35.7 million;
- Construction of Doctors Plaza at Nyamira town – Ksh. 34.3 million;
- Construction of offices for MCAs and Staff – Ksh. 33.2 million;
- Construction and Completion of Inpatient Wards with Operating Theatre at Magwagwa Health Centre – Ksh. 12.6 million;
- Construction and completion of Nyabisimba water project at Bogichora – Ksh. 11 million;
- Proposed supply, delivery, customization, commissioning and maintenance of Revenue Collection and Management System – Ksh. 10.3 million;
During the year, Nyamira County spent an extra Ksh. 1.44 million when constructing the doctor’s Plaza at Nyamira to set up isolation units for Covid-19 patients. That explains why the specific development project had 104 percent budget absorption rate.
Other notable observations on Nyamira County
- During the year, the county assembly spent all the money they had been allocated for recurrent budget but the absorption rate for develop was not as good at 46.4 percent;
- The Governor’s Office had no development budget for the year equally the Public Service Board and Public Service Management units had no development budget;
The Office of Controller of Budget observed that there were weak budget controllers which allowed the expenditure of more than what was approved in the budget.
How is Nyamira Currently spending money?
In FY 2020/2021, Nyamira County has an approved budget of Ksh. 6.9 billion out of which, Ksh. 2.28 billion and Ksh. 4.62 billion are development and recurrent budgets respectively.
It has a target of collecting Ksh. 250 million from own sources of revenues. That is revenues from parking fees, single business permits, cess and markets among others.
Nyamira County had Ksh. 855 million remaining unspent by the end of FY 2019/2020 and this was brought forward to FY 2020/2021.
During the first half of the current year 2020/2021, Nyamira County received Ksh. 2.11 billion as the equitable share of revenue raised nationally. You all may be aware that counties receive a share of revenue from the national government. This is what they call equitable share – a fruit of the Constitution of Kenya 2010. Further, during the period Nyamira received Ksh. 56.8 million as conditional grants. Finally, the county raised Ksh. 74 million from own sources of revenues. As usual, the county had Ksh. 855 million remaining unspent from FY 2019/20 and was brought forward hence the county had a total of Ksh. 3.1 billion for spending.
During the first half of the year, a total of Ksh. 2.21 billion was spent on both development and recurrent programmes.
Expenditure by economic classification
During the first half of 2020/21, Nyamira County spent Ksh. 1.5 billion of paying salaries, wages and benefits for county employees and only Ksh. 353.8 million on development projects while operations and maintenance took Ksh. 353.9 million.
The expenditure on wages and other benefits for the first half of the year was 68 percent of the total spending which exceeded the Public Finance Management (PFM) Act 2012 Regulations limit of 35 percent of county total revenues.
COVID-19 support in 2020/21
Nyamira County Assembly approved a budget of Ksh. 251.8 million for Covid-19 support and during the first half of the year Ksh. 153.84 million was actually spent out of which Ksh. 100 million was expenditure of own source of revenue at source. What do I mean here. You see counties are expected to bank their own sources of revenue with the County Revenue Fund (CRF) held at the Central Bank and whenever they need the money the counties are required by law to seek for approval to transfer the funds to commercial banks from where they access the money for expenditure. However, in their own wisdom or lack thereof, Nyamira County spent the Own Source of Revenue at source.
DANIDA provided a grant of Ksh. 5.3 million all of which was spent and was not in the approved budget. Further, during the first half of the current year (2020/21) Nyamira County received a grant of Ksh. 46.8 million from the national government for allowances of frontline healthcare workers.
So far Nyamira has spent Ksh. 353.8 million on development programmes out of which Ksh. 85.5 million was spent on building capacity of county farmers to improve food security under the NARIG project. In my honest opinion this is not a development project if it was real just a training and no equipment or machinery was provided to these farmers. This may be a mis-classification of expenditure which gives us a false impression that Nyamira County is spending the minimum of 30 percent as required by the law (PFM Act 2012). The provision of scanty details in the budgets leaves room for speculation.
The Pavilion at Manga Stadium was erected at a cost of Ksh. 12.9 million while Ksh. 66.4 million was spent on infrastructure of village polytechnics.
Just like in the year before, the Governor’s Office, Public Service Board and Public Service Management had no development budget allocation in FY 2020/21. This is slowly becoming a standard practice in Nyamira County.
County Assembly, health, education, Trade, tourism and industrialization did not receive any exchequer issues for development expenditure. These departments only received money for recurrent expenditure. Nevertheless, education, health and youth departments went a head and spent money which was not issued by the exchequer. There is a lot of magic going on in Nyamira county at the moment. No explanation was provided by the Office of Controller of Budget on this strange act.
The Office of Controller of Budget once against raised concerns about the low development budget absorption, high wage bill (68% of total expenditure), weak budgetary control and under-performance in own revenue collection.
Where will Nyamira County spend public resources in FY 2021/22?
The draft budget estimates for 2021/22 have not yet been released to the public for us to be able to comment. Even the county fiscal strategy paper which should have guided us on the performance, priorities, projections and ceilings for FY 2021/22 is not accessible on the county website.
You might be aware that the deadline set for the executive to submit the draft budget estimates to the county assembly is 30th April and then the Assembly has 7 days to make it available to the public. This is yet to happen.
The International Budget Partnership released the County Budget Transparency Index 2020 and Nyamira County scored 36 out of 100. So this is a poor performance by all standards. It is a D score and a lot of improvements are required if those who hold power are committed to a proper public discourse on public finances.
However, we have to note that Nyamira County scored well in some of the parameters used in coming up with index. For instance the County scored a B in terms of comprehensiveness of information on aggregate priorities. However, on a sad note it scored an E in terms of providing comprehensive information on flagship projects.
References
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