Governors issue ultimatum, threaten shutdown of all counties over looming budget cuts
From left (seated): Governors Gladys Wanga (Homa Bay), Muthomi Njuki (Tharaka-Nithi), Mutahi Kahiga (Nyeri) and Anne Waiguru (Kirinyaga) address journalists at the Council of Governors' offices in Nairobi on March 21, 2025.
Governors have threatened to shut down operations across all counties in 14 days if the national government does not revoke the County Governments Additional Allocation Bill, 2025. The proposed law will see county governments lose up to Sh38.4 billion in budget cuts.
Council of Governors (CoG) vice chairperson Mutahi Kahiga on Friday said that of this amount, Sh24 billion is meant for conditional grants from donors to support critical county projects in healthcare, agriculture, fisheries, water, roads, slum upgrading and infrastructure development.
The remaining Sh13 billion is for additional allocations from the national government to fund industrial parks.
“This blatant act is yet another attempt to systematically cripple service delivery across the 47 county governments and an affront to the devolution agenda as enshrined in the Constitution. This is not an isolated incident, but rather, a continuation of the deliberate and unjustified reduction of Equitable Share of Revenue under the pretext of revenue shortfalls,” Kahiga said.
The Nyeri governor also dismissed the national government's assertion that there's a revenue shortfall due to withdrawal of Finance Bill, 2024, arguing that the State has increased its expenditure by Sh114 billion in the Supplementary Appropriations Act, 2025.
“These fallacious assertions depict how the national government casually handles the devolution agenda. It should be noted that counties had already made commitments to finance ongoing projects,” he added.
The governors have also demanded release of Sh78 billion in the counties equitable share for the months of January, February and March.
Plea to senators
The contentious County Governments Additional Allocation Bill, 2025 was passed by the National Assembly on March 14 and moved to the Senate for consideration. The governors are now calling upon senators to not pass the Bill.
“We wish to applaud and appreciate the Senate for continuously defending devolution as provided in the Constitution. We implore them to stand firm with the people of Kenya in resisting these unconstitutional budgetary reductions and safeguarding the gains of devolution,” Kahiga added.
Some of the projects that will be hit by looming cuts include those carried out in partnership with development partners such as World Bank. They include the Kenya Informal Settlements Improvement Project (Kisip) whose funding has been reduced from Sh10.4 billion to Sh1.7 billion.
Kisip is carried out in partnership with the national government and aims to improve living conditions and security in slums.
Treasury has also reduced funding to the Food Systems Resilience Project (FSRP) from Sh2.25 billion to Sh905 million. The project is funded by World Bank and the national government.
Tharaka-Nithi Governor Muthomi Njuki said: “Why should they cut funding yet they know that donor-funded projects usually have time limits. This is a deliberate effort to politicise development so that governors will appear like they have not performed.”