Kitui County Assembly Speaker, Kevin Kinengo Katisya has hit out the office of the controller of budget after raising a red flag over wasteful county spending on foreign trips.
Speaking at Tharaka Ward in Mwingi North Constituency during the homecoming ceremony of the area MCA Muthengi Ndagara Kinengo, revealed that the County Assemblies are using their budget approved by the Controller of budget, which is not part of the development budget as the public was being told.
“The Controller of Budget released a report outlining that the MCAs are spending a lot of money and that is why there is less development in the counties. On behalf of all the MCAs in Kenya, I want to clarify that the budgets of the County Executive and County Assembly are different.” The speaker said.
“This is because the budget of the County Assembly is meant to empower and support MCAs during their legislation, oversight, and legislation roles while for the County Executive, at least 30% should go to development while 70% to Recurrent Expenditures. Those who are saying the MCAs are plundering public money and that’s is why there are no drugs in hospitals or development should stop lying to the public,” He added.
He also noted that the County Assembly budget is meant to support the MCAs as they do their roles and thus the controller of the budget should stop dictating to the County Assemblies what to do with their budget as long as it is within their spending ceiling as stipulated.
“The Controller of Budget should execute her duties without politicking, what is wrong with the MCAs doing benchmarking or study visits with the budget they have? I urge the public not to listen to lies being peddled because some people want to fuel fights between the MCAs and their electorates,” The Kitui Speaker told the COB.
