The senate has finally softened its hard stance towards the share of revenue to counties and agreed to an allocation of 316.5 billion shillings, as proposed by the National Assembly.
Senate majority leader Kipchumba Murkomen said the legislators made what he termed to be a painful decision in order to avert a looming shutdown in counties.
The legal battle between the National Assembly and the senate over how monies should be to allocate to counties is far from over.
After nearly three months of haggling over what counties should receive as their share of revenue from the national coffers, reality appears to have set in at the senate.
The senate has finally given in to an allocation of 316.5 billion shillings, down from their push for an allocation of 335 billion shillings.
Announcing this decision, senate majority leader Kipchumba Murkomen admitted that counties were faced with the real prospect of shutting down their services, which would affect critical sectors such as agriculture and health. The move follows a senators’ meeting that was called by the senate speaker Ken Lusaka.
The senate resolved to take the 316.5 billion shillings as contained in the republished division of revenue bill, 2019 currently before a mediation committee of the two houses.
But it appears the sibling rivalry between the national assembly and the senate is far from ending.
Despite accepting the Ksh 316.5 billion allocation senator have however vowed to sustain their petition challenging the appropriation act 2019 that is before the high court the senators decision now puts a stop at least for now the stalemate over division of revenue that threatened to paralyze operations at the counties since July
