The National Assembly wants governors to withdraw their case challenging the move by MPs to deny the devolved units Sh10.5 billion from the roads kitty.
Members of the mediation committee from the National Assembly side yesterday asked senators to intervene so that county chiefs drop the matter.
They held that this would determine how the engagements on the standoff over county cash would proceed.
The mediation followed after Senators amended the Division of Revenue Bill, 2024, to provide that counties get Sh400 billion instead of the Sh380 billion that the National Assembly had allocated.
The central call in a session cochaired by Kiharu MP Ndindi Nyoro (Budget Committee chairperson) and his Senate counterpart Ali Roba (Mandera), was that the negotiations would be easier without the case.
The High Court extended orders freezing the disbursement of the roads levy fund pending the determination of the petition filed by the Council of Governors.
Led by Funyula MP Wilberforce Oundo, members of the National Assembly said the revenue bill standoff was political.
“This is a political process. The figures and the court issue are the elephants in the room. We urge our Senate colleagues to have a conversation with the governors and report progress,” he said.
But Roba said Senators, in seeking more funds for counties, were executing their mandate as protectors of devolution and not as agents of the county bosses.
“We won’t engage governors. While we are executing our mandate, it is no secret that governors and senators have no dalliance. We cannot tell them that the National Assembly is insisting the roads maintenance levy case has to be withdrawn for the Division of Revenue Act to progress,” Roba said.
National Assembly members insisted that there was no room to wiggle to accommodate the extra Sh20 billion that counties are pursuing.
Nyoro called on members of the committee to pursue a deliberate solution.
“There is no straight line on the Sh400 billion. The fallback is not clear. We must not take the easy route. The real solution is to unlock the money,” the Kiharu MP said.
He argued that if it was possible, Senate should find time to speak with the council of governors and have the latter attend the deliberations for a way forward.
“We can have CoG attending as friends of the committee. We need to have the session formally or informally. We must be deliberate if we are to unlock the money,” Nyoro said.
This was even as his counterparts maintained it would be difficult to realise the projected Sh3 trillion revenues especially with the collapse of the Finance Bill, 2024.
“We have no chance of raising
Sh3 trillion. We are sitting in a situation where whatever figure will
be a struggle. Let’s be realistic. The
truth shall set us free,” Oundo said
