Governors on Tuesday reportedly rejected a Ksh390 billion offer made to them by the National Treasury as the proposed equitable share allocation for the 2024/2025 Financial Year at a meeting chaired by President William Ruto.
At the meeting held on the sidelines of the ongoing Kenya Kwanza retreat in Naivasha, the governors, despite pleas from Ruto, stuck to their guns insisting on their initial request of Ksh439.5 billion, which the Treasury whittled down to the proposed amount.
The governors further insisted that Treasury channels Ksh10.52 billion from the Road Maintenance Levy (RMF) to counties.
Reports indicate that despite the governors standing their ground, Treasury declined to increase the allocation noting that the government is experiencing financial constraints limiting the government's capacity to spend.
Amid the stalemate, the governors have requested for further consultations with the national government expressing concerns that failure to allocate the requested amount will hamper development in the counties.
Speaking during the retreat, the Council of Governors (CoG) chair, Anne Waiguru further faulted the national government for encroaching on county functions.
Waiguru cautioned that the encroachment would lead to a clash between the two levels of government.
"As governors, we have restrained ourselves from having fights publicly. If you're going to hire officers to do work done by county officials there will be a clash," Waiguru warned.
She noted that devolution was a fruit of the people’s demands to decentralise governance and bring services closer to them, but the national government was undermining this right.
“Other than the issue of resources, think politics, this country had reached a place where it was almost breaking because of the centralisation of power. If we claw back everything, there will be a revolt, it may not happen now, in 5 or 10 years but there will be a revolt by the people,” Waiguru explained
In addition, the governors also cautioned the Cabinet Secretaries to resist temptations to claw back on devolved functions and eating into county governments' budgets.
During the meeting, the president, however, insisted that his administration was committed to devolution citing his decision to extend an invite to the Council of Governors (CoG) to resolve the matter.
This week's meeting was held after the COG last week requested a crisis meeting to find a solution amid the stalemate.
