Lawyer Kibe Muigai with Kiambu senator Kimani Wamatangi who is seeking government stopped from allocating more money to counties until there is an equitable formula for sharing revenue leaving Milimani law court on Friday April 19,2016.
BY THOMAS KARIUKI.
Kiambu senator Kimani Wamatangi wants the government stopped from allocating more money to counties until there is an equitable formula for sharing revenue.
He says that the formula used today is grossly defective and has occasioned serious inequalities in allocation of revenue in a way that disadvantages geographically small, populous, urbanized and densly populated counties like Kiambu.
The senator says that other counties falling within the same bracket as Kiambu are Mombasa, Kisumu, Makueni, Nakuru, Uasin Gishu, Nyeri, Embu, Trans Nzoia, Meru, Kericho, Homa Bay, Tharaka Nithi, Kisii, Muranga, Nyamira, Nairobi, Bungoma, Vihiga, Malindi, Kirinyaga, Busia and Machakos.
This is following a Senate move that rejected recommendations made by the Commission on Revenue Allocation (CRA) on February 26 2015.
Mr Wamatangi says that since then, the senate standing committee on Finance, Commerce and Budget usurped the mandate of CRA to formulate recommendations on a formula for revenue sharing among counties.
“The first generation Revenue Sharing formula was approved by parliament in November 2012 and has been used to share revenue from 2012 to 2016,” the senator said.
According to the senator the second generation revenue sharing formula was required to take effect from 2015/16 financial year but this has been made impossible by a no-vote by the senate against a proposed new formula.
CRA proposed that revenue should be allocated according to population, equal share, poverty, land area, fiscal responsibility, development factor and personnel emolument.
As per a stakeholder meeting called by CRA, the participants wanted among other things that the parameters for revenue sharing be reviewed to appropriately reduce the weight of some disappropriately favoured geographical areas, sparsely populated counties to the detriment of densely populated, small and urbanized counties.
The senator argues that in the absence of recommendation by CRA, “the country is being set up by the finance committee to adopt an illegal resolution that would be the basis of revenue sharing among counties.
“Unless the court intervenes to stop this elaborate conspiracy and subversive scheme to produce unfair benefit of public resources from the overwhelming majority of the Kenyan people to the advantage of the minority, the devolved system of government would have grossly failed as a mechanism to ensure equitable sharing of national resources and development of all counties of Kenya,” he says.
Senator Wamatangi says that he has also gone ahead to beseech CRA to include such other parameters as revenue raising effort, Own revenue to budget ratio and service pressure. However the commission, he says has abdicated its mandate and left the senate committee to do its job.
He therefore wants an order prohibiting the Senate and National Assembly from determining a second revenue sharing formula among counties besides CRA to be compelled to formulate recommendations for the same.
Hearing will be on May 4.
