The Marsabit County Assembly has expressed dissatisfaction by the Commission on Revenue Allocation (CRA) recommendations to the Senate seeking to reduce monies in the arid and semi-arid areas of the country.
The assembly appealed to the commission to consider a review on the financial guidelines to county governments to ensure an upward projection on fund allocations.
The Marsabit county assembly speaker, Matthew Loltome said that CRA’s third basis for revenue sharing which are set to be presented before the senate for approval would have the allocation to Marsabit reduce by Sh.300 million.
The commission which had paid courtesy call to the speaker and the assembly led by its Chairperson, Dr. Jane Kiringai was told that a number of recommendations on revenue sharing and the second policy on marginalization would rob the marginalized counties the already little allocations they were receiving.
Loltome observed that the CRA’s recommendations should aim at seeing a relational upward projection of funding to the counties and not the other way round.
The speaker expressed concern that a non-need based formula would be hard to be understood by the common mwananchi, and as such the commission should strive to align the changes with development plans of the counties for sustainability purposes.
Members of the assembly were in agreement that the deductions on allocations to counties were unfair with North Horr Ward MCA Thura Ruru terming it subjective.
The Sagante Ward MCA, Stephen Katelo called for stable fiscal sharing methods if an equitable revenue allocation to counties is to be realized.
“The new formula by CRA is not conclusive because all stakeholders were not involved and therefore there is need for an appraisal” said Katelo.
However, the assembly praised the commission for factoring in the needs at the sub-location level.
Dr. Kirangai said the proposals were pro-devolution adding that the commission could not allow recommendations that could stifle development.
She said that the new formula was going to promote balanced economic development and fiscal discipline in the country.
“This formula is transitional and is meant to cushion the marginalized counties against loss of revenue allocation,” she maintained.
In the third recommendations, CRA has coded 154,024 sub-locations in the country through which marginalization levels would be assessed.
By Sebastian Miriti
