BUSIA – The County Government of Busia has announced a budget plan of 8.787 billion shillings for the fiscal year 2024/2025. The announcement was made during a public participation forum on the draft budget and Medium Term Expenditure Framework, which took place at Bungengi Primary School.
According to Kenya News Agency, the County Executive Committee Member for Treasury and Economic Planning, the budget will include funds sourced from various channels: 7.587 billion shillings as the equitable share from the national government, 647 million shillings from local revenue, and an additional 552.51 million shillings from loans and conditional grants. The health services and sanitation department is set to receive the largest allocation at 27% of the total budget, amounting to 2.4 billion shillings. This represents a decrease from last year’s 2.7 billion shillings.
Other key allocations include 982.8 million shillings for agriculture and 962.3 million shillings for the County Assembly, both securing 11% of the total budget. The education sector will receive 10%, or approximately 859.6 million shillings.
During the forum, several concerns were raised about the distribution of the budget. Ali Atemba, the County Health Administration officer, noted the reduction in the health budget and argued for increased funding for employee compensation to 2.2 billion shillings from the proposed 1.682 million shillings. Stephen Odhiambo, chairman of the Busia County Budget and Economic Forum, criticized the inadequate funding for gender issues, youth support, and the absence of allocations for monitoring, evaluation, and audit functions.
Odhiambo also highlighted the need for better funding for irrigation to shift from rain-fed agriculture, and called for more investment in the health sector’s commodity supplies and the department of strategic partnership and the digital economy. Lastly, forum participants emphasized the importance of completing existing projects before starting new ones and urged the county officials to provide budget documents in a timely manner to facilitate better public understanding and feedback.