The High Court in Nairobi on Friday, December 13, ordered Treasury CS Ukur Yattani to release the funds retained from 35 counties.
The order came after the Council of Governors sued Treasury claiming the move had stalled services in the counties, as most of them had run short of cash.
According to Daily Nation, Treasury had claimed that it could not release the funds as the Office of Controller of Budget was vacant.
Governors decried that the continued retention of the funds even after the appointment of a new controller of budget, whose role is to approve the release of cash from the government’s main account, the Consolidated Fund to ministries, counties and other state agencies.
The CoG further noted that suppliers had developed cold feet about working with county governments due to continued delayed payments.
CoG chair and Kakamega Governor Wycliffe Oparanya announced that they had petitioned the High Court to compel the National Treasury to disburse funds to counties regularly on a monthly basis.
He called on the National Government to adhere to the Public Finance Management Act which stipulates that monies to the counties be disbursed latest on the 15th day of the month.
“We have been able to pay salaries from the local revenue and I am appealing to all the legible taxpayers to pay taxes so as to enable us to offer the services in return,” he added.
The CoG chairman further stated that the delays had prompted his administration to intensify local revenue collection which has assumed an upward trajectory in the past four months.
