How did Nairobi City County spend Money in the first 9 months of 2018/2019?
I remember vividly, Nairobi City County had an approved budget of Ksh. 32 billion in FY 2018/2019. However, the non-inclusive supplementary budget changed it to Ksh. 33.34 billion.
By the way, we need to do something about supplementary budgets they are too opaque. This is unconstitutional and we should all rise against the injustice of supplementary budgets! Article 201 of the Constitution of Kenya 2010 is clear that “there shall be openness and accountability including public participation in financial matters.”
Nairobi City County expected to generate Ksh. 15.50 billion from local sources of revenue such as Single Business Permits and Cess among others.
In this article, we will focus on how the Nairobi City County performed during the first nine months of the year 2018/2019. This is the most recent implementation report available from the Office of Controller of budget.
Nairobi City County generated Ksh. 8.24 billion from own sources of revenue during the period under review.
During the said period, Nairobi City County withdrew Ksh. 14.86 billion from County Revenue Fund account. However the county spent Ksh. 18.45 billion on both recurrent and development which was 124.1 percent of the money approved for withdrawal.
Nairobi City County’s absorption rate for development budget was 21.1% while that of recurrent stood at 72% of the total budget.
Insurance costs was the leading expenditure at Ksh. 863.84 million followed by scholarships at Ksh. 446.77 million.
Read More: Nairobi County pays Ksh. 1 billion as salaries every month
A total of Ksh. 95 million was spent on foreign travel while another Ksh. 323 million was spent on domestic travel by employees of both Nairobi City county executive and assembly. Therefore, travel alone had cost Ksh. 418 million of taxpayers’ money.
Development budget
For the first 9 months, Nairobi City County spent Ksh. 2.3 billion on development activities. This was just 21.2% of the total development budget.
Below is a list of some of the development projects implemented in Nairobi City County:
- Construction of Matopeni Estate Road at a cost of Ksh. 103 million out of Ksh. 119 million budget;
- Rehabilitation of Academy Road in Karen at a cost of Ksh. 40 million out of Ksh. 75 million budget;
- Road maintenance had been allocated Ksh. 359 million but only Ksh. 119.2 million was spent during the period;
Challenges
Nairobi City County reported a number of challenges facing their budget implementation process among them ballooning wage bill which increased from Ksh. 10.01 billion in first 9 months of FY 2017/2018 to Ksh. 11.2 billion for the first 9 months of 2018/2019.
The second challenge was low absorption of development budget. This is a challenges for many counties across Kenya and Nairobi City County is no exception.
Read More: Nairobi City County to establish corporations for health and water
