Lawyers’ fees slashed from Ksh60m to Ksh1m, county secretary budget axed as MCAs starve Waiguru of cash

The rift between ward representatives and Governor Anne Mumbi Waiguru continued to deepen on Monday after the resentful MCAs slashed Kirinyaga County's legal fees from Ksh60 million to Ksh1 million only.

Further, the Assembly flexed its muscles by cutting off entirely the Ksh111 million allocated to the Kirinyaga County Secretary's office budget.

According to the Assembly, the legal fees were meant to pay for lawyers who represented the embattled governor in the Senate during the impeachment motion.

Speaking to the press after passing the budget, the Kirinyaga County Budget Committee Chairman David Mathenge revealed that the assembly diverted Ksh110 million to the Education department for the bursary fund.

By slashing the county secretary's office budget to zero, the MCAs intent to paralyze its operations since the office is the fulcrum of the county government affairs.

The slashed monies were directed to ward-based projects for construction of roads, dispensaries and water projects.

MCA Mathenge also revealed that the county executive had proposed zero amount for deputy governor's office but they went ahead and allocated Ksh15.6 million as per the 2019/2020 budget.

Deputy Governor Peter Ndambiri has been at loggerheads with Governor Waiguru since the MCAs started the impeachment process.

The county chief accused her deputy of supporting the impeachment motion against her.

Another loser in the passed budget is the county communications directorate which earlies this year was disbanded by the Assembly as the MCAs accused it of being a propaganda machine for the county.

A Ksh90 million that had been proposed for furniture was axed from the budget.

The budget committee chairman said that the county government cannot continue spending millions of shillings on non-issues when the people are suffering over lack of resources.

"We have removed all this non-issues allocation from the budget. We can't have Ksh60 million to pay lawyers when our children have no school fees," said Mathenge.

The biggest beneficiary in the budget was the MCAs as they allocated themselves Ksh200 million for ward-based projects, Ksh140 million to complete stalled projects and Ksh140 million for bursaries.

The MCAs also allocated Ksh116 million to fight Covid-19.

They said that the governor must show what she has done with the previous Ksh24 million allocated to fight the virus.

The Health department was allocated Ksh1.6 million for its recurrent budget, Ksh225 million for drugs, and Ksh264 million for development in the same docket.

Speaking when debating the Budget, Majority Leader Kamau Murango said that they faced many obstacles during the budget-making process over claims the Executive refused to cooperate.