Kitui assembly on Tuesday passed the second supplementary budget for the County government expenditure of Sh12,306,052,565 for the financial year 2022-2023.
But the supplementary budget that was presented by the chairman of the assembly budget and appropriation committee Zacchaeus Syengo, saw the budget reduced by 72,953,191 from the initial Sh12,379,005,756 budget.
However, Syengo who is the MCA for Voo ward, attributed the scaling down of the budget to the whittling down of grants that were initially expected by the county by Sh92.95 million.
He said, however, that the own source revenue collection was scaled up by Sh20 million
Syengo noted that the Kitui County Assembly budget as submitted by the County Assembly Service Board was maintained in the initial figure of Sh1.5 billion.
He said any funds realignment and reallocation were accommodated in the original Kitui Assembly budget sum.
Syengo said the supplementary budget presented from the executive indicated that Sh3.6 billion was set aside for development while Sh8.6 billion was earmarked for recurrent expenditure.
“The submitted budget had a development and recurrent expenditure of Sh3,637,206,181 and Sh8,668,846,384 which translates to 30 per cent and 70 per cent respectively.
"This is very lean development budget taking into account the county development needs,” Syengo said.
He said the budget also saw the own source revenue upped by Sh20 million from the projected Sh400 million to Sh420 million because revenue collection appeared to have improved by the end of March 2023.
“Submissions by representatives from the ministry of finance indicated that as at March 31, 2023, the county had collected slightly over Sh327 million which average a collection of Sh37 million a month and thus probable to attain the new target,” he said.
