April 2018 | By International Budget Partnership Kenya
Each year Kenya’s Parliament must decide how national revenue will be shared between national and county governments. This discussion is informed by recommendations from the Commission on Revenue Allocation and the National Treasury. This analysis compares the recommendations made by both agencies on the equitable share and conditional grants and explores the main drivers of their differences. Three key issues emerge:
- Both agencies do not agree on the revenue growth factor that should be used to determine the growth of the equitable share between 2017/18 and 2018/19.
- The formation and allocation to conditional grants do not seem to follow any predictable pattern, and the growth in their allocations from one year to the next appear to be arbitrary.
- The distribution criteria for some of these funds is inequitable and unfair to recipients of the funds.