The approved Garissa County budget for financial year 2018/2019 was Ksh. 10.16 billion. The county government expected to collect Ksh. 250 million from own sources of revenue and Ksh. 6.93 billion from national government in the form of equitable share.
However for the first 9 months, Garissa County received Ksh. 4.23 billion as equitable share and collected Ksh. 81 million from own sources of revenue among other sources.
In total, Garissa County budget was spent to a tune of Ksh. 6 billion to spend for those nine months under focus. However, only Ksh. 5.7 billion was spent on both development and recurrent activities.
Ksh. 1.1 billion was spent on development while Ksh. 4.5 billion was spent on recurrent activities. The largest portion of recurrent expenditure was on domestic travel.
Development expenditures
Garissa County government failed to provide a report to the Office of the Controller of Budget (OCoB) on how they spent their money on development projects.
The OCoB observed that Garissa County had experienced a lot of improvement in terms of development budget absorption considering that zero percent was spent in FY 2017/2018.
Just like many other counties across the nation, Garissa County budget expenditure experienced ballooning wage bill. This is an headache for many county governments. It is reported that during the period under focus, the wage bill grew by a whooping 44 percent.
Garissa County budget was absorbed to a tune of 27 of the development budget compared to an expectation of 75 percent of the total budget. This is one of the areas where the county should pull up her socks if the residents are to enjoy improved service delivery.
Read More:
- Garissa County Assembly approves a Ksh. 10 Billion Budget FY 2018/2019
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