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Biggest beneficiaries of Sonko’s signed supplementary bill for NMS


City Hall contractors, suppliers and casual workers can now breathe a sigh of relief after Governor Mike Sonko signed a new supplementary budget giving the county government the greenlight to spend.

Nairobi Metropolitan Service (NMS) is the other beneficiary of the supplementary budget as it will be able to access Sh3.5 billion as its allocation for the four county functions now under it. This includes Sh2.25 for recurrent expenditure and Sh1.25 for development expenditure.

CASUAL WORKERS

Under the budget, suppliers and contractors owed by City Hall have been allocated Sh1.7 billion as part of the funds going towards offsetting the county’s eligible pending bills.

This is part of the Sh3.6 billion supplementary budget set aside to settle the eligible pending bills with Sh859 million allocated towards settling part of pending bills owed to development contractors while the remaining Sh2.825 billion going towards settling part of outstanding recurrent pending bills owed by the county to different suppliers.

Another Sh120 million has also been set aside for the payment of 850 casual workers employed by the County Government and who have gone for months without being paid their wages.

The Education department has been allocated an additional Sh50 million in bursaries to assist bright and needy children across the city while another Sh50 million has been allocated to the county’s emergency Fund.

The signing of the bill, after its passage by Nairobi County Assembly on Tuesday, and its subsequent publishing as Nairobi County Supplementary Appropriations Act, 2020 now brings to an end a two-month long stalemate over the budget.

The standoff between the Executive and the assembly had threatened to paralyse operations of both the county government and the NMS.

Nairobi County Assembly Budget and Appropriations committee chairman Robert Mbatia said the signing of the bill into law will ensure that county operations are not interrupted and that the county meets its development targets.

SERVICE DELIVERY

“In the next few days to come bills will be paid, the NMS will gets its funding and the executive will also receive the funds to continue its operations and that is why it was necessary to resolve the stalemate that surrounded Supplementary Appropriations bill,” said Mr Mbatia.

Governor Sonko’s spokesperson Ben Mulwa said that the highlight of the signing of the supplementary bill and its subsequent publishing into law is the inclusion of NMS into the budget.

He added that the move now permits the Finance and Economic Planning Executive to utilise the funds in the last quarter of the current financial year ending June 30, 2020 pointing out that the budget will benefit all sectors in the county government covering pressing issues including payment of casuals, pending bills, contractors and suppliers who had been factored under this financial year.

“All this issues have been budgeted for including contractors but that money could not be spent until it is factored in the supplementary budget and approved. Now that that has happened, those people will now be paid,” said Mr Mulwa.

“The most important thing is that this now permits the Finance CEC to utilise the resources because he could not utilise government resources without a supplementary appropriations law. The bill was gazetted on Wednesday afternoon,” he added.

On his part, Assembly Majority leader Abdi Guyo said that the supplementary budget had been drafted and approved following fruitful deliberations with key stakeholders and the executive.

“This bill is all-inclusive because it takes care of everyone with utmost importance being placed on fast and efficient service delivery to Nairobi residents,” said Guyo.