Kajiado county denies receiving Sh2.2 billion

The Kajiado County Government has clarified that they did not receive Sh2.2 billion for the 2023/2024 financial year as earlier reported.

County Finance Executive Alais Kisota said the amount was budged for in the 2023/2024 but was not received hence the budget deficit.

Speaking to The Standard, Kisota clarified that the money was not diverted, as reported by a section of the media.

''On Tuesday, it was reported that Sh2.2 billion meant for payment of pending bills had been diverted to other uses, this is not true because you cannot divert such a huge amount of money meant for a critical budget line such a payment of pending bills, this was a resources shortfall from our budget estimates," he said.

The Finance CEC explained that the county had expected to receive a total of Sh11. 4 billion from various sources but only managed to get Sh9.2 billion.

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"For instance, our budget had factored in Sh8.3 billion from the Exchequer but received Sh7.6 billion. We also anticipated grants amounting to Sh1.5 billion, but we got only Sh456 million. The situation was further affected by a short fall of revenue where we expected to raise Sh1.6 billion but managed to collect Sh1.1 billion, " he said.

Kisota noted that the county had budgeted for Sh958 million to pay pending bills, but managed to only pay Sh570 million in the last nine months.

"We are on crush programme to pay pending bills because they are affecting local economies. It is fiscally impossible to interfere with this budget line because it is now very sensitive and important to our contractors and suppliers," he said.

He claimed that some political forces are out to taint the integrity and standing of the county’s fiscal management to advance their selfish agenda.

"The systematic miss-representation of financial facts is being driven by political merchants who wants to insinuate money has been lost. It is not possible in the circumstances we are in," said Kisota.

This comes days after a finance report was released by Auditor General Nancy Gathungu.