Nyandarua county has doubled its development budget to Sh 2 billion, widening its budget gap that could see it increase local taxes. The development fund was an increase from Sh 900 million in 2017
The county plans to collect Sh 630 million from the 400 million collected in the last financial year.
In the year 2022, the county plans to spend 6.8 billion, of which Sh 4.7 billion 69.96 percent will go towards recurrent expenditure, while Sh 2 billion, which is about 31 percent of the total budget, will go towards development expenditure.
The county will rely heavily on donor funding, goodwill from the national government, and other development partners to complete expensive flagship projects.
The increased target on county revenue collection does not automatically mean increased taxation for traders, but treasury will focus on streamlining revenue collection, according to finance executive Stephen Njoroge.
The growth is due to the favourable environment created by the government, and our main focus is to streamline revenue collection from this remarkable growth, and this will be done through policy formulation, but without burdening our traders and investors, said Dr Njoroge, the Ol Kalou Municipality and other towns have grown tremendously in the last three years.
He says most of the ongoing flagship projects are national government and donor-funded due to intensive lobbying.
"We have enjoyed good working relationships with the national government and goodwill from the donor community," said Dr Njoroge.