Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua engaged governors and the Commission of Revenue Allocation (CRA) on Thursday, January 26, in a bid to come to terms with the equitable revenue share to counties.
Reports indicate that the meeting extended past six hours after the three parties failed to agree on the standard equitable share to distribute to counties.
Governors demanded the amount to be capped at Ksh425 billion- an increase of 14 percent as opposed to the current Ksh370 billion.
This was, however, countered by CRA commissioners who sought the amount to be raised to Ksh407 billion.
National Treasury, on the other hand, sought the amount to increase by Ksh10 billion to Ksh380 billion.
An impasse ensued among the three parties, as the governors failed to have their normal tea and lunch breaks.
Following the deadlock, Gachagua informed the governors that they would meet with President William Ruto in February 2023 to discuss the matter and agree on an amount.
The deadlock in the meeting comes amidst the CRA's chairperson Jane Kiringai advising the commissioners to strike a balance between the political and technical process when agreeing on the revenue share.
“The task of sharing revenue is a very political process and technology on the other side. You going to have to strike a very good balance between the two,” she stated while addressing the eight new commissioners appointed by Ruto in December 2022.
"You have a very technical and capable secretariat that I can guarantee you but most importantly from the six years’ experience what is going to matter most is how you are going to interact with the two houses of parliament," she added.
Kiringai advised the commissioners to come up with a strategy for agreeing on the amount.
“You should work together and strategize and negotiate both with the executive since the other critical partner is the National treasury and our experience has taught us that once the two institutions agree then the rest will be easy,” Kiringai stated.
