President Uhuru Kenyatta has today Friday, signed into law the Supplementary Appropriation Bill, 2015 and Division of Revenue Bill, 2015 which has triggered renewed contention between the National Assembly and the Senate.
The Division of Revenue Act, 2015 provides for the equitable division of revenue raised nationally between the national and county governments in the 2015/16 financial year.
The act outlines that a total of Sh287.04 billion will be allocated to the counties in the coming financial year, which is an increase by Sh3.3 billion.
The Supplementary Appropriation Act, 2015 authorizes the release of a sum of Sh50. 464 billion from the Consolidated Fund for utilization by the Government in fulfilling its financial obligations for the remaining part of the current financial year which ends on June 30.
The amount each ministry has been allocated for recurrent and development expenditure for the remaining period of the financial year is also indicated in the Supplementary Appropriations Act.
The Division of Revenue Bill has sparked a renewed wave of controversy between the National Assembly and the Senate with the latter terming Mps as selfish after they slashed recurrent allocations to the Senate, Judiciary and to the Salaries and Renumeration Commission (SRC).
The National Assembly slashed the recurrent allocations amounting to Sh1 billion from the Senate Affairs Programme, Sh800 million from the Judiciary with the Salaries and Remuneration Commission losing Sh200 million.
The National Treasury was also not spared the MPs blade as Sh325 million earmarked for the IFMIS programme, Sh1 billion meant for human resource reforms temporary employers and defined contributory scheme programmes respectively was cut.
Senators in a report on The Nation have criticised the National Assembly for denying them the proposed Sh1 billion which they say was meant to enable them monitor and evaluate devolution.
According to Members of Parliament the slash on the Senate and Judiciary budgets was in a bid to raise the additional Sh3.3 billion for counties.
The Bills were presented to the Kenyatta on Thursday evening by National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi who was accompanied by the Clerk to the National Assembly Justin Bundi and the Solicitor-General Njee Muturi.
