- The county executive reduced or completely scrapped funding for some projects in the 2023/2024 financial year Supplementary Budget to enable implementation of priority projects.
- Some of the projects the county government has prioritised include the school feeding program, bursary and scholarships, construction of stadiums and construction of markets among others
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Nairobi County government has shelved a few programs to enhance the implementation of key programs in the latest supplementary budget.
The county executive reduced or completely scrapped funding for some projects in the 2023/2024 financial year Supplementary Budget to enable implementation of priority projects.
Some of the projects the county government has prioritised include the school feeding program, bursary and scholarships, construction of stadiums and construction of markets among others.
The Governor Johnson Sakaja-led adminstration has also rationalised the budget in line with its own source revenue collection trends ensuring that only projects that can be funded are retained in conformity with fiscal responsibility principles.
Sakaja has said his administration is well prepared to tackle unforeseen events such as flooding by increasing its emergency response budget.
"In the remaining period of the FY, the County will accelerate the enforcement efforts to ensure all outstanding charges are paid and more revenues flow in to fund the above projects," Sakaja said.
"The County Treasury has made steady progress in the revenue mobilization efforts in the current financial year and the revenue mobilization strategies are showing positive results, the County is poised to record the highest own source revenues collected since the onset of devolution."
By May 23, 2024, the County revenue performance was at Sh11.2 billion, one of the best performances since the inception of devolution.
Among the vote heads affected by the county executive's move to scrap the budget is the county public service board whose original development budget was Sh 10,000,000. The amount was reduced to zero.
Nairobi Revenue Authority's development budget of Sh100 million has also been scrapped completely.
"These allocations have been carried forward to the next financial year with the purchase of revenue mobilization vehicles under the Authority allocated Sh100 million," Sakaja said.
The county executive reduced the Public Service Management budget to Sh10 million from the Sh30, million allocated.
As a result, the Sakaja adminstration has provided an additional Sh30 million to the department in the budget for the coming financial year.
The budget for the county assembly has been cut by Sh915 million to Sh300,000. The initial budget was Sh1.215 billion.
The county government now says it has cut the budget for the County Assembly as a result of an agreement with the Sakaja administration to provide land for the construction of the administration block.
The cost of acquisition of land and other attendant costs were hence knocked off the budget.
County executive however increased the budget for Environment, Water, Energy & Natural Resources by Sh311,420,000 to Sh 732,460,000.
The increase is to tackle the flooding by investing in more garbage collection, clearing of drainages, provision of more water tanks as well as improvement of the dumpsite.
Ward development funds (WDP) were reduced to Sh 1.3 billion from Sh1.955 billion. This represents a drop of Sh655 million.
With the total completion certificates raised for WDP at the time of considering the supplementary estimates standing at Sh600 million, the county deemed the Sh1.3 billion for the Ward Development Programme sufficient to take care of the completed works by the end of the financial year.
This is by also considering that an additional Sh600 million is expected by the end of the financial year.
With a focus now on key projects, the Sakaja administration now aims to ensure the key projects are implemented for the benefit of City residents.