County Budget Crisis Deepens as Speaker Exposes Illegal Spending Plans

By Martin Masai

The Machakos County budget impasse has taken a new turn after County Assembly Speaker Anne Kiusya declared Governor Wavinya Ndeti’s memorandum on the Sh17.797 billion Appropriation Bill inadmissible and returned it to the Governor.

Kiusya’s communication to the House on Tuesday, September 1, provided the Assembly’s most detailed explanation yet of why it substantially altered the Executive’s proposals before passing the Machakos County Appropriation Bill, 2026, on August 18.

She cited concerns over the legal basis of some programmes, spending on functions assigned to the national government and the Executive’s alleged failure to provide information requested by Assembly committees.

However, the Speaker’s decision has introduced another legal question into the dispute: whether she has the authority to prevent the Governor’s memorandum from being considered by the Assembly.

Section 24 of the County Governments Act provides that a Governor may return a Bill to a county assembly with a memorandum outlining the reasons for the referral. The Assembly may then amend the Bill in response to the Governor’s objections or pass it again without accommodating them.

Neither Section 24 nor the corresponding provisions of the Assembly’s Standing Orders expressly establish a separate admissibility test for a Governor’s memorandum.

The Governor returned the Bill on August 31 after declining to assent to it. She accused the Assembly of making unauthorised reallocations totalling Sh853.96 million and asked members to reconsider the amendments.

The Speaker instead returned the memorandum to the Governor without referring it to the relevant committees or allowing the House to consider the objections.

That decision leaves the county without a full Appropriation Act and opens the possibility of a legal dispute over the procedure followed by the Speaker.

The Assembly has, however, authorised the withdrawal of up to 50 per cent of the proposed budget to finance salaries and essential services pending the passage of the full Appropriation Act.

Garbage collection dispute

One of the contested reallocations concerns Sh78.32 million that the Executive had proposed for contracted garbage-collection services in Machakos, Mavoko and Kangundo-Tala municipalities.

Kiusya said the Assembly was concerned that the county did not have a law or policy framework specifically governing the proposed privatisation of garbage collection.

According to the Speaker, the Assembly had previously asked the Executive to formulate such a framework, but the Executive proceeded to budget for contracted services before doing so.

She also questioned what would happen to county machinery and personnel currently involved in garbage collection if the service were transferred to private contractors.

Kiusya said the Assembly retained the money within the responsible department but redirected it away from contracted services.

The Governor has presented a different account. In her memorandum, she said the Assembly eliminated the garbage-collection allocation and redirected the money to allowances, conferences and fuel.

The competing accounts cannot be settled without reference to the detailed approved estimates and the specific budget lines to which the money was transferred.

Sub-county office allocation questioned

The Assembly also reduced funding classified under other current transfers to sub-county offices.

Kiusya referred to a reduction of approximately Sh90 million and said the department had not satisfactorily explained the sharp increase in the proposed allocation.

The Governor’s memorandum placed the reduction at Sh97 million, from Sh112.7 million to Sh15.7 million.

According to Kiusya, the offices had previously operated on approximately Sh2.5 million each. She said the department had not explained why the substantially larger allocation was required.

The Speaker also accused the Executive of failing to provide information sought by the Assembly concerning ward administrators and village councils.

She said the General Oversight Committee and committees responsible for labour, public service and ICT had requested the information without receiving satisfactory responses.

“How will the Assembly provide funds to offices that are refusing accountability and oversight?” Kiusya asked.

The Executive has argued that the reduction would leave the eight sub-counties with inadequate resources to supervise county services and conduct public participation.

Assembly defends removal of MYS allocation

The Executive proposed Sh175.86 million for the Machakos Youth Service, but the Assembly reduced the programme’s allocation to zero.

Kiusya said the Assembly preferred to direct more money towards technical and vocational education and training institutions, which she described as having a more established institutional and governance structure.

Machakos County has both a Youth Empowerment Act, enacted in 2022, and a Technical and Vocational Training Centres Act, enacted in 2021.

The dispute is therefore not simply whether youth empowerment has a statutory basis, but whether the existing Youth Empowerment Act establishes a sufficiently clear legal and accountability framework for MYS as currently constituted.

The Governor maintains that MYS was created under the Machakos County Youth Empowerment Act and that eliminating its allocation would disrupt vocational training and employment programmes for young people.

Although the Assembly increased funding for vocational training, the publicly available figures do not establish that the entire Sh175.86 million removed from MYS was transferred to TVET institutions.

Bursary allocation reduced

The Assembly reduced the county bursary allocation by Sh30 million, from Sh121.7 million to Sh91.7 million.

Kiusya said the money was redirected to early childhood development and education.

She argued that ECDE is expressly assigned to county governments under the Fourth Schedule of the Constitution, while secondary and tertiary education are principally national government functions.

The Governor objected to the reduction, arguing that it would affect students from financially disadvantaged households.

The constitutional division of education functions does not expressly prohibit counties from operating bursary schemes. The Assembly’s position is that, when choosing between competing education priorities, county resources should first be directed towards a function expressly assigned to the county.

Conflicting accounts over Wikwatyo Fund

The Wikwatyo Fund remains another major point of disagreement.

Kiusya said the Assembly declined to provide the proposed funding because the programme lacked an operational legal and regulatory framework.

She accused the Executive of failing to address concerns previously raised by the Assembly about how the fund would be managed, distributed and audited.

The Speaker cited what she described as earlier failures by the Executive to comply with county legislation and Assembly resolutions. These included the alleged absence of regulations under the county’s Climate Change Act, appointments to hospital boards and committees without Assembly approval and failure to comply with an Assembly motion freezing employment.

Those allegations remain the Speaker’s account and have not been independently established in the current budget documents.

There is also conflicting information about how much money remains under Wikwatyo.

The Governor’s memorandum says the allocation was reduced by Sh100 million, from Sh137 million to Sh37 million. An earlier examination of the approved estimates by The Anchor found no clearly identifiable allocation remaining under the Wikwatyo Fund budget line.

The precise position will require clarification from the final approved budget schedule.

Disagreement over road responsibilities

The Assembly also moved money from roads it classified as national government responsibilities to projects it considered county roads.

Kiusya identified Ekalakala, Makaveti and Miti Muonza among the affected roads.

She said the money was redirected towards access roads and projects including Matuu–Equity Lane Road, Matuu Hospital Loop Road, Kithini–Vota Road and Gossip Road–Mlolongo.

The Speaker argued that the county should not finance national government functions in the absence of an intergovernmental agreement.

President William Ruto launched construction of the Makaveti–Kyangala–Iiyuni Road on August 22, ten days before Kiusya’s communication. The national government has also identified the Matuu–Ekalakala–Kangulu Road as a project under the Kenya Rural Roads Authority.

The position concerning Miti Muonza is less clear.

In December 2025, the Machakos County Government advertised a multi-year tender for the upgrading of the Miti Muonza–Lita Road. That county tender complicates the claim that the project is exclusively a national government responsibility.

It is unclear whether the Assembly and Executive are referring to the same section of the road or to separate projects with overlapping names.

The Governor has also argued that some of the affected roads are already under contract and that reducing their allocations could expose the county to breach-of-contract claims.

Governor’s Cup reduced

The Assembly reduced funding for the Governor’s Cup from Sh50.6 million to Sh10.6 million.

Kiusya said the remaining allocation could still support the tournament, particularly if the Executive secured additional assistance from partners.

She said part of the money was redirected towards levelling sports grounds across the county.

The Governor has described the reduction as part of a wider attack on programmes intended to benefit young people.

Revenue system documents withheld, Speaker claims

The Assembly also removed Sh126.9 million proposed for the Integrated County Revenue Management System.

Kiusya said the Finance Committee had requested documents concerning the system but that the Executive had not provided them.

She further claimed that the Executive had previously informed the Senate that the system had been supplied at no cost. The Assembly therefore wanted an explanation of what the new allocation was intended to finance.

The Governor says the system has helped increase own-source revenue from Sh1.55 billion in the 2023/24 financial year to Sh3.35 billion in 2025/26.

She warned that removing its funding could undermine the county’s Sh4.93 billion revenue target for 2026/27.

The dispute cannot be resolved without disclosure of the contract, licensing arrangements and other documents requested by the Finance Committee.

The Sh130 million Assembly allocation

The Governor also objected to an additional Sh130 million allocated to the County Assembly’s development vote.

She accused the Assembly of raising its allocation above the ceiling approved in the 2026 County Fiscal Strategy Paper.

Kiusya said the money had already been appropriated under the Assembly’s development vote in the 2025/26 financial year and represented an unutilised balance being carried forward.

She cited Section 109C of the Public Finance Management Act, which allows receipts, savings, accruals and balances in the County Assembly Fund to be retained.

The Speaker also cited Section 129(3), which requires the County Assembly Clerk to prepare the Assembly’s budget estimates and provide a copy to the County Executive Committee Member for Finance.

The Finance CECM’s obligation to prepare and present comments on those estimates is contained separately in Section 129(4).

Kiusya said the Finance CECM did not submit comments on the Assembly’s estimates through that process.

Whether the Sh130 million qualifies as a retained balance under Section 109C, and whether its inclusion complied with the approved ceiling, will depend on the Assembly’s financial records and the relevant budget documents.

Both sides invoke the one per cent rule

Both the Governor and the Speaker have cited Regulation 37(1) of the Public Finance Management (County Governments) Regulations, 2015.

The regulation provides that any increase or reduction in the expenditure of a vote must not exceed one per cent of that vote’s approved ceiling.

The Governor says the Assembly exceeded that limit when it altered allocations totalling Sh853.96 million and increased its own development vote.

Kiusya disputes that interpretation.

She accused the Executive of measuring some of the Assembly’s changes against the estimates originally submitted by the Executive rather than the ceilings approved in the County Fiscal Strategy Paper.

However, the Governor’s public statement also identifies the CFSP ceilings as the applicable benchmark.

The disagreement therefore appears to concern the underlying calculations, the classification of the reallocations and whether particular vote ceilings were exceeded—not simply which document supplies the legal benchmark.

Neither side has publicly provided a complete vote-by-vote calculation demonstrating compliance with the one per cent limit.

What happens next?

Kiusya urged the Governor to assent to the Bill and suggested that the Executive could later seek additional allocations through a Supplementary Budget.

The Governor, however, has already exercised her statutory power to return the Bill with objections.

Ordinarily, Section 24 of the County Governments Act would require the Assembly to consider those objections. It could accommodate them, amend the Bill or pass the Bill again without accommodating the Governor’s concerns. Overriding the Governor’s objections would require the support of two-thirds of the Assembly.

The immediate procedural question is what happens when the Speaker refuses to place the memorandum before the House.

Until that question is resolved—or one side changes its position—Machakos will continue operating under the interim spending authority approved by the Assembly rather than a full Appropriation Act for the 2026/27 financial year.