By county diary
High court lawyer Morris Kimuli has advised the assembly Leadership to stick to their mandate on oversight, and legislative, the assemblies do not make county budgets, but their roles are to validate the county executive budgets, Making a budget in line with the government manifesto It’s a preserve of executive, the assembly responsibility is to validate the county budget, Kimuli has said.
There is a thin line between making the budget and approving the County Budget.
1. Execution of county programs is an executive function, not a legislative function.
2. County Assemblies don’t make budgets. They remain true to their oversight role. That does not begin to suggest vandalizing what the executive has presented and replacing it with what members of the CA consider ideal in their own way.
3. The budgeting process is elastic. Proposed budgets result from the most robust consultations including public participation. The oversight role of the CA calls for the most prolific thinking.
The straight-line thinking and rigid approach where the CA reduces this important matter to a mere question of ceilings is regrettable.
The exigencies of county administration and development priorities do not admit this rigidity. You may have missed the memo, but the law actually allows elasticity of these so-called ceilings.
They are not cast in stone. And even if they were, it would not be the place of the Assembly to make the adjustments. The limited room allowed to the CA to pass the budget estimates with amendments only refers to those amendments that have been discussed and agreed with the County Executive.
“It doesn’t refer to unilateral incursions into the budget estimates by the CA. That is why section 131 of the PFM decrees that there must be consultations with the CECM Finance.
4. I saw the adjustments proposed and adopted by the County Assembly. They make you guys look bad.
When assembly asked for Shs.40M for each Ward, what were you thinking? Development reaches the Wards through a structured process and as a consequence of government programs. You don’t allocate Shs.40M first to each Award then you retreat to Mombasa to know what do to with it. Blanket allocations of that nature are scandalous and impious.
5. This county needs to develop and industrialize. I fail to understand why the CA is against Kikotec and the Stone Crusher.
These programs have been supported even by the National Government, and have been inspected and validated at the highest levels. We recently won a major contract to make uniforms for administrators in Kenya.
When you starve these projects of money, you want the county government to fail so that the contracts are withdrawn? We have a lot of goodwill on this, with even working partnerships with EPZ and others. If you asked genuine, honest, legitimate questions about these projects, you would be more informed.
Mbaki mbaki the minority leader should be reminded to lead the government business house with sobriety at the house
6. As Leader of Minority, please engage the widest possible consultations before you speak.You are essentially supposed to be the one speaking for government programs in the Assembly. Do not celebrate when people say “even Mbaki Mbaki” is against Ngilu. While you have freedom of speech and conscience, always remember that you occupy a high position of responsibility.
7. I am not in government. And I don’t speak for the county government. I am a consumer of government services just like all of us here. Always remember that under Chapter 6 of the Constitution, the authority MCAs exercise is a public trust.
