GOVERNORS PROTEST MP DECISION TO DENY COUNTIES SH10.5 BILLION IN ROAD MAINTENANCE FUNDS
Angry governors protest MPs denial of counties Sh10.5b in Road Levy Fund. The County Chiefs, led by Issa Elanyi Chamao, Patrick Ekirapa, Paul Kirui, and the International Legal Consultancy Group, argue that the decision by the National Assembly to remove county governments as beneficiaries of the Road Maintenance Levy Fund was unconstitutional.
Filed under a certificate of urgency, the petitioners argue that by removing counties from this funding mechanism, it has very dire consequences on questions of local governance and infrastructure maintenance.
They similarly criticized the decision to have been made devoid of public participation and approval from the Senate, claiming to have promulgated arbitrariness and bad governance.
The petition expresses that on 23 September last year, county governments were unilaterally excluded by the National Assembly from benefiting from the Road Maintenance Levy Fund for the 2024-2025 and 2025-2026 financial years, basing it on section 6 of the Kenya Roads Board Act, 1999. After the High Court issued a conservatory order suspending this move in December, the matter was withdrawn in February when MPs agreed to allocate Sh10.5 billion to counties through the County Governments Additional Allocation Bill, 2024.
However, lawmakers reneged on this promise, fanning fears that county governments will now suffer a funding shortfall despite their constitutional mandates for county roads.
The petitioners argue that the action by the National Assembly essentially denies all the 47 county governments access to funds collected from fuel purchases by the Kenya Roads Board, which is held in the Board’s account. Now it will be channeled through KeNHA, KURA, KeRRA, and KWS.
It is the petitioners’ case that diverting these monies to the said agencies while excluding county governments is discriminative and a contravention of the Constitution. The petitioners have listed road agencies, Transport CS Davies Chirchir, Parliament, the Attorney General as the respondents, while the Commission on Revenue Allocation, Senate, and Intergovernmental Relations Technical Committee are listed as interested parties.
They now want the court to issue orders halting the KRb from disbursing the money to agencies responsible for roads and that Sh10.5 billion should be allocated to county governments.
