Members of Parliament are now seeking the intervention of Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi as stalemate rocks funding of key programmes initiated by President William Ruto’s administration.
The mediation committee on the county government’s additional allocation is mulling inviting Mbadi to unlock the impasse that now threatens to stall the programmes.
“We should consider inviting the Treasury CS to shed light on how much the government is willing to provide for the different programmes initiated by the national government,” the committee’s co-chairperson Tabitha Mutinda said.
The 18-member panel, comprising MPs and senators, has clashed over the proposed additional allocations to the counties.
The National Assembly had approved Sh46 billion as conditional grants to counties for the financial year ending June 2025 while the Senate amended the same approving Sh62 billion resulting in a stalemate.
A meeting held on Monday ended in no agreement. A court case on the Sh10.52 billion-road maintenance levy fund also scuttled any agreement with the meeting being adjourned.
The stalemate is set to affect the budget for payment of stipends to community health promoters (CHPs), which is pivotal to universal health coverage.
“It is the CHPs who are doing SHA (Social Health Authority) and SHIF (Social Health Insurance Fund) registration,” Homa Bay Senator Moses Kajwang’ said.
"Therefore, calls to suspend the proceeding until the case is concluded is unpatriotic.”
Others include the construction of county aggregate and industrial parks and county headquarters.
A proposal by senators to canvas six out of seven contentious issues, which are not subjudice, was opposed by MPs who wanted the mediation process to be wholesome.
During the Monday meeting, Mutinda pushed for a meeting to today, but her counterpart Ndindi Nyoro (Kiharu) warned that they might be engaged in an exercise in futility.
“At this point, a decision has to be made. I feel like we should agree to discuss other issues which are not before court and conclude on them on Wednesday since the Senate is going on recess on Thursday (tomorrow),” Mutinda said.
“The elephant in the room is RMLF. It is a matter in court. Are we able to agree and say let the matter be handled in court? I am saying all these for us to make progress and positively conclude this matter,” she added.
However, Nyoro said rushing the process will not achieve anything as the Bill will collapse should the RMLF case not be withdrawn and it will take another six months for a new one to be reintroduced.
He argued that any variation on the Bill is dependent on the National Assembly approving a second supplementary budget.
Besides scrapping Sh10.5 billion RMLF allocation, the MPs reduced the allocation for CHPs to Sh2.58 billion from Sh3.24 billion.
The MPs also reduced the budget for CAIP by Sh2.5 billion. CAIPs are being put up under a joint funding framework, with the national and county governments contributing Sh250 million each.
The Senate had allocated each of the Sh47 counties Sh250 million for the construction of the parks.
MPs scrapped Sh523.10 million support from the national government for the construction of some five-county headquarters.
In addition, MPs removed the entire Sh30.18 million that had been
proposed for payment of staff following the transfer of the function
to the counties.
