Governor Julius Malombe’s administration has suffered a major political and governance setback after the Kitui County Assembly dramatically rejected the county’s Second Supplementary Budget for the 2025/2026 financial year, citing what Speaker Kevin Kinengo Katisya described as grave legal, fiscal and constitutional irregularities.
The extraordinary decision, delivered Tuesday afternoon during a charged plenary sitting at the County Assembly chambers, has thrown the county into the middle of a high-stakes confrontation between the Executive and the Assembly, exposing widening cracks over financial management, accountability and control of public resources.
In a lengthy and sharply worded communication from the Chair, Speaker Kinengo ordered the Office of the Clerk to immediately return the supplementary estimates to the County Executive Committee Member for Finance, saying the document as presented could not legally stand scrutiny before the House.
The Speaker warned that approving the budget in its current form would amount to sanitising illegality and abandoning the Assembly’s constitutional mandate to safeguard public finance.
The ruling now places Governor Malombe’s administration under intense scrutiny after the Assembly accused the County Treasury of presenting a budget framework riddled with inconsistencies, unrealistic revenue projections and questionable reallocations that could expose the county to legal disputes, pending bills and financial instability.
At the centre of the storm is the alleged omission of more than Sh1.2 billion in re-voted funds from the previous financial year, despite earlier assurances by the County Treasury that the anomaly would be corrected through a subsequent supplementary budget.
Speaker Kinengo faulted the Executive for failing to provide for ongoing contractual obligations and incomplete projects, arguing that such omissions violated provisions of the Public Finance Management framework which require unspent funds tied to continuing projects to be reallocated in the succeeding financial year.
The Assembly argued that failure to account for the re-voted funds artificially suppressed the county’s true financial obligations while creating the risk of ballooning pending bills and expensive litigation against the county government.
The budget row intensified after legislators discovered proposed reallocations that would allegedly result in negative balances within the Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS), a move the Assembly described as both unlawful and impractical.
One of the contentious proposals involved the reallocation of hundreds of millions of shillings from road development projects despite the available balances being insufficient to support the transfers.
Another controversial proposal targeted funds allocated for construction of County Assembly ward offices even after procurement processes had reportedly commenced and contractors issued with Local Purchase Orders.
The Assembly interpreted the move as not only fiscally reckless but also a direct threat to existing contractual obligations that could expose taxpayers to compensation claims and court battles.
In the House, several MCAs strongly backed Speaker Kinengo’s communication, insisting that cutting allocations for roads and ward offices would cripple service delivery and weaken oversight operations at the grassroots level.
The rejection of the supplementary estimates also opened a fresh debate over the County Treasury’s revenue projections after the Assembly questioned the logic behind increasing own-source revenue targets despite persistent underperformance.
According to documents tabled before the House, Kitui County had by the end of March collected slightly over Sh649 million against a target exceeding Sh1.1 billion, leaving a substantial deficit. Despite the shortfall, the Executive still proposed an upward revision of revenue estimates by an additional Sh150 million.
The Assembly termed the projections unrealistic and unsupported by any credible revenue enhancement strategy, warning that inflated estimates could trigger unsustainable spending commitments and deepen the county’s financial strain.
Speaker Kinengo further revealed that even the Office of the Controller of Budget had previously flagged the county over unrealistic revenue projections in earlier supplementary estimates.
The standoff escalated further after the Assembly questioned the introduction of fresh projects through the supplementary budget process, arguing that some expenditures did not meet the legal threshold for emergency or unforeseen spending as required under public finance laws.
Among the contentious allocations were funds for Ithookwe Stadium works linked to the planned Kitui Agricultural, Trade and Investment Expo, new expenditures under the Governor’s Office and fresh projects under the Health and Agriculture departments.
The Assembly accused the Executive of attempting to use the supplementary budget to introduce projects that should ordinarily have undergone public participation and approval during the normal budget-making process.
Political observers now view the dramatic rejection of the budget as a significant escalation in the increasingly tense relationship between Governor Malombe’s administration and the County Assembly leadership.
The confrontation comes at a politically sensitive period as succession politics and control of county development priorities begin shaping conversations ahead of the 2027 elections.
For Speaker Kinengo, Tuesday’s ruling projected an Assembly determined to assert its constitutional oversight authority. For Governor Malombe’s administration, however, the rejection amounts to a damaging indictment of its fiscal management at a time when pressure is mounting over stalled projects, pending bills and public accountability.
With the supplementary budget now sent back to the Executive for correction, Kitui County finds itself staring at a potentially prolonged institutional showdown whose outcome could significantly shape both governance and political alignments in the county.
