Nairobi City County has revised its 2024/5 budget upwards with estimates from the supplementary budget pushing the figure to Ksh 44.7 billion from Ksh 43.6 billion.
- In the revised total estimates, the recurrent budget stands at Ksh 32.9 billion while the development budget stands at Ksh 12.08 billion.
- This is an upward revision of recurrent estimate by Ksh 3.09 billion and downward revision of development budget by Ksh 2.1billion, with the net change being a revision upwards of KSh 905mn.
- The capital city has budgeted KSh 1.3bn to repay a portion of its significant pending bills stock, which totalled KSh 121.06bn in September 2024, accounting for 62% of the total pending bills by counties.
To finance the revised budget estimates, the county expects to receive Ksh 20.85 billion as share equitable revenue from the National Government, Ksh 1.3 billion as conditional grant, Ksh 351 million from the liquor board, Ksh 1.9 billion as cash balance from the previous year, and collect Ksh 20.06 billion as own source revenue.
“Though the submitted supplementary estimate failed to provide rationale for its preparation, it proposed reallocation within sectors so as to guarantee smooth and seamless operations for service delivery within the county departments,” the select committee on county finance, budget and appropriations said in a report.
Nairobi’s budget reallocations include an additional Ksh 150 million to the emergency fund, an additional Ksh 400 million towards the school feeding programme, and KSh 300 million for purchase of health commodities.
The supplementary budget also includes a Ksh 1.26 billion budget line for the payment of other creditors. Other than Nairobi’s Kshs 121.06billion in unpaid bills, other counties with significant bills include Garissa at Ksh 6.07 billion, Kiambu at Ksh 5.90 billion, Turkana at Ksh 4.78 billion, Machakos at Ksh 4.42 billion, and Mombasa at Ksh 3.93 billion.
As of 30 September 2024, counties’ outstanding pending bills totalled Ksh 194.01 billion, comprising of Ksh 149.50 billion for recurrent expenditure and KSh 44.51 billion for development expenditure.
In December, the Auditor General reported that Nairobi and nine other counties had not spent anything on development programmes in the first quarter of the year. This lowered the average absorption rates of development expenditures to just 3%, from 4% in the corresponding period in the previous financial year.
