Waiguru’s fresh headache as MCAs start process of dissolving the county.

Members of the Kirinyaga County Assembly have set the stage for a renewed battle with the County executive; after they began collecting signatures to petition the president to dissolve the Anne Waiguru led county government.

A section of MCAs led by Assembly Majority leader and Kerugoya MCA Kamau Murango, on Monday July 13 stated that they will be collecting signatures in all the 24 wards of Kirinyaga County.

Murango stated that their target is to collect 60,000 signatures an amount that is double the required signatures (30,000) to dissolve a County Executive.

“Already I have collected over 1000 signatures in my ward,” said the Majority Leader.

The developments came after Governor Anne Waiguru issued a press statement, accusing the County Assembly of declining to approve the 2020-2021 budget.

Waiguru appealed to the Senate, the Controller of Budget and Jubilee Party leadership to intervene and save her county from grinding into a halt.

She claimed that instead of the County Assembly approving the proposed budget presented before it, the MCAs submitted a completely new budget with a variation of over 30%, going against the requirement of regulation 37(1) of the Public Finance County Government Act, 2015 which limits the assembly variations to 1% of the set limits.

However, Chairman of the County Assembly Budget Committee David Mathenge dismissed the Governor’s claims

“We have been asking for some papers from her office in vain and we did not remove any money from the budget,” said Mathenge who is also Baragwi MCA.

The Kirinyaga Governor vowed not to approve the specific alterations done to the budget, pointing out that the Assembly moved over Ksh.300 million meant to pay salaries for health workers to construction of ward offices.

She further noted that the Assembly removed from the budget Ksh.20 million meant for payment of casual workers’ wages that she said are critical in cleaning health facilities especially during the current period when the country is dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The assembly also removed Ksh.14.6 million meant for fueling ambulances, water bills and acquiring oxygen for Kirinyaga hospitals, and this is unacceptable since it means paralyzing operations in my health sector,” an angry Waiguru added.