Embu County Assembly Deputy Speaker, Hon. Steve Simba has urged Senators to demonstrate leadership in the ongoing Division of Revenue formula debate.
Simba, who is also the Member of County Assembly(MCA) of Runyenjes Ward in Embu County, spoke on Monday during the Good Morning Kenya show aired on KBC Channel 1.
The Deputy Speaker said that Senators have a constitutional role to ensure revenue is allocated equitably across counties.
“The Senate is an upper house made of men and women who care about counties they should, therefore, show leadership by agreeing on the enactment of the Division of Revenue bill,” he said
According to Simba, the Senate should put aside the politics involved in the revenue sharing formula debate to save the financial challenges ailing the Counties.
“Counties are already financially drained, very soon workers are going to strike due to unpaid salaries,” he stated
Simba said if the Senate has the interests of the people at heart, then coming up with a solution should be relatively easy.
“Revenue should be shared equitably among counties but the parameter of the population should take the lion’s share,” he said
He, however, alluded to the main challenge in implementing the division of revenue bill to political competition between the Senators and the sitting Governors.
“The reason why there is always a crisis in revenue sharing is because of politics. Most of the Senators want to be Governors and they feel that if the sitting Governors are allocated more money their work will be super and they will not be able to outsmart them.”
The Deputy Speaker also called upon Counties to map out areas where they can be able to get local revenue to boost development at the grassroots level.
The Senate will reconvene on 4th August 2020 to adopt an amendment by Nairobi Senator Johnson Sakaja which seeks to retain the current revenue allocation formula for counties.