Nairobi Tops List of Kenyan Counties with Highest Pending Bills
- Controller of Budget (CoB) Margaret Nyakang'o explained how 47 counties spent public funds in the first six months of the 2024/2025 FY
- Nyakang'o revealed the devolved units were yet to settle KSh 180.52 billion owed to suppliers of goods and services
- This included KSh 143.49 billion for salaries and allowances, while KSh 37.03 billion were for development activities
Japhet Ruto, a journalist at TUKO.co.ke, has over eight years of experience covering finance, business, and technology, providing insightful analysis of economic trends in Kenya and globally.
Controller of Budget (CoB) Margaret Nyakang'o has unveiled the County Governments’ Budget Implementation Review Report for the first half of the 2024/2025 fiscal year.
Source: Twitter
What's the value of pending bills by counties?
The report highlighted the expenditure by devolved units from July to December 2024.
Nyakang'o revealed that counties were yet to settle KSh 180.52 billion owed to suppliers of goods and services.
This included KSh 143.49 billion for salaries and allowances, while KSh 37.03 billion were for development activities.
"In the first half of FY 2024/25, the county governments reported outstanding pending bills stock of KSh 180.52 billion comprising of KSh 143.49 billion for recurrent activities and KSh 37.03 billion for development activities," Nyakang'o stated.
Which counties have the highest pending bills?
Below were the devolved units with the highest pending bills:
- Nairobi - KSh 118.26 billion.
- Kiambu - KSh 5.63 billion.
- Machakos - KSh 5.07 billion.
- Mombasa - KSh 3.72 billion.
- Bungoma -KSh 2.83 billion.
What hindered counties in budget implementation?
Nyakang'o explained that counties faced several challenges that hindered implementation of their budgets.
Source: Twitter
These included non-adherence to pending bills payment plans, delay by Parliament to enact the Government Additional Allocations Bill 2024 and under-performance in own source revenue collection.
Others were over-dependence on revenues from Appropriations in Aid, non-adherence to the exchequer workplans submitted to the OCoB and low expenditure on development programmes.
She urged counties to grow their own source revenue streams and asked Parliament and relevant stakeholders to address the outstanding issues related to mediation in the County Governments Allocation Act Budget.
How much did counties spend on recurrent expenditure?
During the period under review, the county governments' recurrent expenditures totaled KSh 151.26 billion (40% of their annual budget for recurrent activities).
This is in line with the absorption rate observed during a comparable period in FY 2023/2024, when recurrent activity expenditures totaled KSh 143.72 billion.
The expenses included KSh 48.95 billion (32%) for operations and maintenance and KSh 102.32 billion (68%) for personnel remuneration.
Furthermore, Members of County Assemblies (MCAs) spent KSh 722.89 million on sitting allowances representing 37% of the KSh 1.95 billion annual budget.
Which counties had highest and lowest development expenditure?
The same report showed counties were slow in implementing development projects, with billions lying idle at the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK).
In the first half of FY 2024/2025, county governments spent KSh 33.60 billion on development, according to Nyakang'o, which represents a 16% absorption rate.
Lamu, Kitui, and Nakuru counties had the lowest development absorption rates, while Mandera and Narok counties had the highest.
Proofreading by Jackson Otukho, copy editor at TUKO.co.ke.
Source: TUKO.co.ke
