Kenyan Senate Speaker Amason Kingi has said that the delay by National Treasury to disburse funds to counties and inadequate allocation for devolved functions remain the biggest threats to Devolution.
The Speaker called for a robust engagement between the Council of Governors, National Treasury and Parliament on how disbursements can be improved to hasten service delivery to counties.
"The delay not only deny County Governments the opportunity to execute projects and programmes in a timely manner but also nourish the ogre of pending bills that is currently the waking nightmare in most county governments," Speaker Kingi said.
Kingi made the remarks on Monday during a high-level legal sector meeting convened by the Council of Governors in Mombasa.
Mr Kingi pointed out that it serves little purpose for the country to stick to a funding mechanism that is inconsistent with present realities noting that the Senate is ready to enact appropriate legislation and positively consider proposals for budgetary increments that would see the delivery of justice increase in the counties.
He also said there is a need for two levels of government to explore ways of unbundling the devolved functions to arrive at actual, realistic costs that would form the basis for sufficient allocations from the National Treasury to counties.
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