NAIROBI, Kenya, April 5 – The Commission on Revenue Allocation (CRA) convened a meeting with the Budget and Appropriations Committee to review progress in budget implementation, focusing on fostering equity in society.
Discussions sought a clearer delineation of roles and responsibilities between the national government and county governments to prevent duplication and ensure efficient utilization of resources in budget implementation.
Concerns were raised regarding duplication of functions in various sectors, like education.
Despite the Constitution assigning specific responsibilities to county governments, substantial portions of county budgets are directed towards bursaries for education levels beyond their mandate.
“Under Schedule 4 of COK (2010) only Pre-primary education, Village polytechnics, homecraft centers and childcare facilities are under the county governments yet CG spend a substantial amount of their budgets towards bursaries for other levels of education,” stated CRA.
In health, there was a need to align the Subsidized Health Insurance Fund (SHIF) with existing county medical schemes and to appropriately finance community health promoters (CHP) under county jurisdiction.
“This National Government policy should be reviewed to recognize the existing county medical schemes; Community Health Promoters (CHP) are a CG function and financing should be at that level,” CRA noted.
It was noted that KEMSA, a state agency that serves both levels of government, needed the alignment of the functional and governance structures between the two levels of government as assigned by the Constitution. That would eliminate the need for counties to establish their own individual agencies.
Energy-related functions are concurrent, meaning both levels of government have responsibilities. However, legislation needed clarification to prevent duplication in areas such as electricity and gas regulation and energy regulation.
It was also noted that agriculture sees duplicate efforts with both national and county governments in implementing fertilizer subsidy programs.
