Kajiado Governor Joseph ole Lenku slammed what he termed as an unfair distribution of Ksh 5 billion Covid-19 funds from the National Government to the devolved units.
The governor noted that the county had one of the highest cases in the country yet it received less money than what some of the counties with fewer cases had been allocated.
"We have been allocated Sh 52 Million, yet we now have 92 confirmed cases. Counties that are yet to record a single case have been allocated more than Sh 200 Million.
"The allocation of Ksh 5 billion to counties to support efforts to fight COVID-19 needs an urgent review," decried ole Lenku.
The former Interior Cabinet Secretary added that there indications that Kajiado county will suffer more from the pandemic. As such, the Commission on Revenue Allocation (CRA) is misrepresenting the correlation between the allocation of resources and the needs of the people.
During his state of the nation address on Saturday, June 6, President Uhuru Kenyatta announced the release of funds to counties to assist in mitigating Covid-19.
"We have disbursed Ksh 5 billion to the counties to increase their health care capacity in wake of this pandemic," President UHuru said.
According to data from the Ministry of Health, Kajiado currently is the third most affected with a total of 92 confirmed cases of Covid-19 after Nairobi and Mombasa.
Nairobi which is the epicentre of the disease in the country was allocated Ksh 294 Million while Mombasa was allocated Ksh100 Million.
The schedule further reveals that a county like Kakamega which is yet to report any positive Covid-19 case was allocated Ksh 262 Million. Kisii county was allocated Ksh 156 million while Uasin Gishu with less than 50 cases was allocated Ksh 125 Million.
Speaking in Kajiado during a brief on the county's preparedness in combating the disease, ole Lenku noted that they are at risk due to closeness to Namanga border.
"In fact, 70 per cent of our cases are related to the Namanga and Oloitokotik borders where the majority are truck drivers," he stated.
The Governor also touched on the county's bed capacity revealing that there are 63 ordinary beds as well as 10 High Dependency Unit beds in isolations wards.
