President Uhuru Signs Bill Allocating Sh341 Billion to Counties

President Uhuru Kenyatta has on Thursday signed into law an Act that gives the guidelines on the equitable distribution of the national revenue for each of the 47 counties.

This will mean that in the 2017/2018 financial year, all the 47 counties will be allocated a total of Sh341 billion, which will include Sh302 billion of equitable share of national government revenue and Sh23 as conditional grants from the national government, with Sh16.4 billion in conditional allocations from loans and grants from development partners.

The County Allocation of Revenue Act 2017 specifies what each county will get from the national cake on the basis of the revenue sharing formula approved by Parliament.

It further sets out details of conditional allocations from national government which include; conditional grants for level 5 hospitals, special purpose grants supporting construction of county headquarters, allocations for development of youth polytechnics, conditional allocations to compensate county health facilities for forgone user fees, conditional allocations for leasing of medical equipment, Road Maintenance Fuel Levy Fund and maintenance of county roads.

Nairobi County will get the lion’s share of Sh15.402 billion, an addition of Sh1.3 billion from last year’s allocation, while Turkana will receive the second highest share of Sh11.307 billion.

Kilifi (Sh9.95 billion), Kiambu (Sh9.96 billion), Kakamega (Sh9.93 billion) and Mandera (Sh9.73 billion) are other counties who received a substantial share of the national cake.

The Act also provides limits of recurrent expenditure for county assemblies and county executives in each of the counties.