After months of tension between President Uhuru Kenyatta and Nairobi Senator Johnson Sakaja, things have started to cool down after the Senator gave the President good news about the progress on revenue sharing standoff in the senate.
Sakaja and his team announced on Wednesday that they have formed a broker deal on the contentious formula.
This comes after eight days of intense negotiations between the 12-member team on the third basis for sharing revenue among the county governments.
The panel led by Sakaja and his Bungoma counterpart Moses Wetangula did not, however, reveal the content of the final formula the committee agreed, saying the standing orders don’t allow it to make the disclosure.
“We will not and we are not allowed by standing orders of the house to divulge the contents of the report until it is presented to the speaker and it finds its way to the house,” committee co-chair Moses Wetang’ula said.
Wetangula, however, said the committee will present its determination on Thursday, in form of a report to the leadership of the House led by Speaker Kenneth Lusaka.
“For the week and a day that we have been meeting, we have made tremendous progress. We are getting to the final bend to take the dash home, so to speak,” the Bungoma Senator said.
The committee was formed last week after a protracted standoff in the Senate on the revenue sharing formula.
The House has failed in nine sittings to approve the formula with a section of the senators whose counties were set to lose revenue in the proposal, rejecting it.
If the formula was passed 18 counties were to lose Sh17 billion from their last year’s allocation.
Senator Johnson Sakaja who co-chaired the committee with Wetangula said the committee reached a determination after considering all the proposals that were presented to it.
“We have looked at all the options that we have had before us and all of those that were proposed by our colleagues and ourselves. And we are confident to say when we look at each other as one indivisible country, then a solution is nigh,” Sakaja said.
Once the leadership of the house accepts the committee’s report, Speaker Lusaka shall gazette a special sitting of the House next week to approve the formula.
The passage of the formula will now allow the County Allocation of the Revenue Bill (CARA) passage that divides among the devolved units the Sh316 billion set aside from the budget.
Breaking his silence on the revenue sharing standoff in the senate President Kenyatta said: “This formula was crafted by the Commission of Revenue Allocation and went to the Senate, indicating that the revenue should be shared justifiably such that everyone gets their fair share.
“Why, then, should a resident of Korogocho or Embakasi be denied their right on the pretext that they live in Nairobi, which they consider a rich county, without the right to receive a specific rightful share of the revenue? Yet these individuals still make do with flying toilets. Truth and impartiality will eventually come out.”
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His statement comes even after Majority Whip in the Senate Irungu Kanga’ta promising to punish the Jubilee senators who included Senator Mutkomen and Senator Sakaja among others for refusing to support the government proposed formula.
Now that Senator Sakaja and his committee have come up with a solution in the revenue sharing formula we hope the President and Nairobi senator can bury the hatchet.
The committee consisted of Senators; Kipchumba Murkomen (Elgeyo Marakwet), Samson Cherargei (Nandi), John Kinyua (Laikipia), Susan Kihika (Nakuru), Steward Madzayo (Kilifi) and Moses Kajwang (Homa Bay).
Others are Ledama Ole Kina (Narok), Mutula Kilonzo Jr (Makueni, Anuar Loitiptip (Lamu) and Mohamed Mahamud (Mandera).
