By John Lepeto
Mandera County Assembly has approved a controversial Sh11.4 billion budget for 2022/23 fiscal year that the Budget and Appropriations Committee had disapproved over anomalies in allocations for some of the budgeted items.
The Ahmed Rashid led committee had listed Sh410 million for drilling and equipping of boreholes, Sh208 million for desilting of several dams, Sh30 million for the proposed departmental offices and Sh16 million for construction of Tabaka hospital as among the items that had abnormal allocations.
The proposed hospital, the MCAs said, had already been built with the executive saying the money was to settle pending arrears owed to the contractor.
Also flagged was Sh120 million for road maintenance and extra Sh104 million for the county headquarters.
The county government will spend Sh147.5 million on proposed airstrips in Rhamu, Lafey, Banisa and Elwak functions that belong to the national government.
The committee also raised concerns over reduction of the county assembly expenditure ceiling to Sh811 million from Sh826 million contrary to the County Revenue Allocations Act 2022.
A plea by Takaba MCA Bishar Abdullahi to have amendments to the estimates to accommodate drought intervention measures were rejected by other MCAs during the session presided over by Speaker Mohamed Adan Khalif.
Wargadud’s Alinoor Derrow and his Malkamari counterpart also rejected the budgetary estimates.
