Senate fails to pass revenue formula, adjourns for the 8th time

Tony Mukere

August 11, 2020 8:33 PM

The adjournment came after a major win by Senators from marginalized areas

File image of Senate Speaker Ken Lusaka leaving the House

The Senate on Tuesday failed to pass a new County Revenue Allocation formula and adjourned for the eighth time.

The motion to pass the new formula was delayed by multiple amendments which saw debate prolong past the 9pm curfew.

Senate Speaker Ken Lusaka ruled that the House could not continue on the matter past curfew hours and ordered that the debate would continue on Thursday.

However, the Senate had earlier passed an amendment by Meru Senator Mithika Linturi which appeared to have the support of majority of Senators.

Under the amendment by Linturi, counties will now have the old formula apply up to Sh270 billion out of the Sh316.5 billion that is allocated to counties.

The other Sh46.5 billion will be distributed on various parameters including population, land mass, poverty, among others.

The amendment will see a number geographically spread counties lose their revenue allocation but in a much lesser amounts than in the one man one shilling formula advocated by Majority Whip Irungu Kangata.

Interestingly, Kang'ata's own county of Murang'a is among the losing counties and will have Sh15 million less than it received in financial year 2019/20.

Some of the top gainers are Kiambu (Sh160.2 million), Nandi (Sh149.2 million), Nakuru (Sh149.0 million), Uasin Gishu (Sh142.5 million) and Nairobi (Sh120.5 million).

Counties that will lose include Mandera (Sh245.2 million), Kwale (177.9 million), Wajir (Sh175.6 million), Marsabit (Sh156.9 million), Kilifi (Sh153.4) and Mombasa (Sh135.1million).

Many of the Senators in the losing team voted for the formula fearing that the Majority side would resort to the old one man one shilling formula where they were losing as much as Sh2 billion per county.

Amendments that are pending have been sponsored by Senators Kimani Wamatangi, Petronila Were, and James Orengo.