Nairobi MCAs allocate Sh1 billion for coronavirus response
Nairobi County Assembly has allocated Sh1 billion to the Nairobi Metropolitan Services towards the fight against coronavirus in the county.
The funds, allocated under the Disaster and Emergency Fund, will be used to purchase sanitisers, masks and other items for Nairobi residents.
“To support the government’s effort on the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic the County Assembly has allocated Sh1.025 billion,” said Speaker Beatrice Elachi after the Assembly’s special sitting.
From the funds, Sh85million will go towards Ward-based interventions including the purchase of hand sanitisers, masks and related items at Sh1 million for each of the 85 wards in the county.
The remaining Sh940 million will remain under the Emergency Fund for general health interventions related to the pandemic.
Nairobi County has been declared an epicentre of the deadly coronavirus with more than 48 confirmed cases out of the 110 cases countrywide.
The allocated funds were drawn from various vote heads from the county government’s annual budget.
Recurrent allocation for general administration and support services programme under the Office of the Governor and the Deputy Governor was slashed by Sh98 million.
The recurrent allocation for security and safety management programme also under the Office of the Governor was also reduced by Sh40 million as well as Sh65 million from the recurrent allocation for disaster management coordination under the same office.
Development allocation for Information and Communication Services under ICT sector was reduced by Sh90 million while Sh52 million allocated for Public Finance Management under the Finance department was taken away.
Development allocation for public finance management under Finance and Economic Planning department was slashed by Sh170 million; recurrent allocation for general administration and support services under the Education sector has been reduced by Sh50 million.
The development allocation for Wards Development Fund was slashed by Sh180 million while the recurrent allocation for ward development was reduced by Sh30 million.
At the same time, the MCAs approved the transfer of more than Sh15 billion to NMS towards the delivery of transferred functions falling under the new office under the Supplementary Appropriations Bill, 2020.
The county legislators also agreed that part of the activities related to legal services, procurement, audit, inspectorate, sub-county administration, ICT, public finance management and human resources be part of ancillary services transferred to the NMS.
The Budget committee proposed that the budgets for the transferred functions be retained at the figures approved in the annual estimates.
“Conservative estimation of the cost of the transferred functions excluding shared services indicate that the County would require to transfer with the functions an amount not less than Sh15 billion,” said the committee’s chairperson Robert Mbatia.
City Hall’s current annual budget stands at Sh36 billion with recurrent expenditure at Sh27.4 billion and the development budget at Sh9.6 billion.
The realignments in the Bill by the Budget committee will see allocation for solid waste management under contracted guards and cleaning services increased by Sh400 million to cater for NYS expenses, casuals and other garbage collection costs.
The allocation for medical insurance has been increased by Sh150million; Sh80 million has been allocated for payment of unpaid bills for casuals for September, October and November 2019 salaries while Sh75.9 million has been allocated to support e-government platforms for maintenance of the Data Centre.
The fire department has been allocated Sh65 million for the training of new recruits and purchase of their uniforms while Sh90 million has been allocated for the contract on the Integrated Revenue Management System.
Going forward, payment of salaries for county staff will be undertaken by the Public Service Commission for the next three months to enable clean up and reorganization of the County’s payroll in line with the transfer of functions.