Council of Governors members addressing the media yesterday
By MTK Reporter
Governors have sounded an early warning to the national government that staff in counties risk going for Christmas without a coin as a cash crunch continue to bite, with some county staff having had to go for more than 3 months without pay.
According to the Council of Governors (CoG) in the next 30 days, counties will have to shut down operations completely if monies owed now totalling to KSh63.6 billion for the months of Ocotober and November are not disbursed immediately.
Currently, counties have been left to offer critical services as some stay at home with the biting cash crunch.
CoG chair Ahmed Abdulahi, who is also Wajir Governor, told a press conference after an extraordinary council of governors meeting in Nairobi that it was unfair that business continues for the national Government, courtesy of a passed supplementary budget, for counties it has ground to a halt.
Consequently, governors say they cannot continue being at the mercy of commercial banks, as they constantly borrow to pay salaries and repay at exorbitant interests as they wait on the national government to disburse what should have been rightfully and constitutionally allocated to them by the 15th of every month.
Governors now want all arrears settled before a full-blown crisis erupts in counties, leading to a total shut down.
On matters health, the governors said the slow registration to the new Social Health Insurance Fund has been hampered by lack of resources, noting that availability would also have the community health promoters spearhead the drive and soar up the numbers.
The CoG also demanded that monies owed to them under the defunct NHIF, now totalling to about KSh9 billion shillings should be released to them, observing that hospitals lacked medicines as KEMSA is not ready to advance them more credit because of a KSh3.8 billion debt, which they argue would be sorted if the KSh9 billion debt was sorted.
The CoG want a speedy resolution for that matter as they called on the national government to prioritize matters devolution.
On the ongoing standoff between the Senate and the National Assembly over the division of revenue bill, the council wants the assembly to tone down on their hard stance, and revert to the agreed KS400 billion
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