The Senate has agreed to adjourn the debate on the county allocation of revenue bill after senators expressed concern on the formula proposed by the commission of revenue allocation CRA.
Senators Moses Wetangula, Mutula junior and Minority leader James Orengo faulted the Finance committee in the senate for failing to provide leadership by coming up with a report of recommendations that was to be debated by the whole house.
The chair of the committee senator Mohamed Mohammed later obliged to the requests and withdrew the bill after Speaker Ken Lusaka ordered that an informal session be organised on Thursday to build consensus on the bill. The bill is crucial to counties as it determines how much money each county gets in the next financial year.
According to the recommendations of the commission of revenue allocation populations is the first consideration getting 45 percent followed by equal share which gets 25 percent then level of poverty per county allocated 20 percent. Land mass comes in distant fourth with only eight percent allocation .
The allocation has always elicited sharp differences with Members of Parliament from Northern parts of the county disagreeing with the much emphasis given to population and land mass ignored.
Since the promulgation of the Constitution and the creation of counties,Nairobi and Turkana Counties have been receiving the lion’s share of the county revenue share from the national government.
Nairobi’s share is however under threat after the handing over of some key functions to the national government that led to the creation of the Nairobi metropolitan service.
The bill will now be reintroduced in the senate next week on Tuesday for the second reading with amendments expected in the committee stage depending on the informal meeting later this week.