Governors have issued a 14-day ultimatum to the national government, threatening to paralyse operations in counties over claims of KES38.4 billion in diverted funds originally intended for operations in the devolved units.

In a statement delivered by Kirinyaga Governor Anne Waiguru on Friday, the warning comes amid an ongoing dispute between the two levels of governance over county budget allocations.

“We, as governors, issue a 14-day ultimatum to the government, failure to which county governments will shut down,” Waiguru stated.

The governors have since directed the national government to restore the funds and further demanded an immediate release of the county equitable share totaling KES78 billion. This, they claimed, is in arrears for three months starting January and have had severe consequences on development projects in the region.

“We have stalled projects for water, roads, and healthcare. Unless we truly do not care about what is happening in this country, especially since public complaints have consistently been about service delivery and stalled projects, we need to get serious,” Waiguru noted.

They also noted that conditional grants from development partners, earmarked for specific projects, were diverted during the passage of the County Governments Additional Allocation Bill, 2025. 

Some of the grants in question are the Financing Locally-Led Climate Action (FLLoCA) grant that was slashed from KES4.9 billion to KES2.586 billion, the Food Systems Resilience Program (FSRP) grant from KES2.25 billion to KES905 million, the National Agricultural Value Chain Development Project (NAVCDP) allocation from KES5 billion to KES1.7 billion, and the Water and Sanitation Development Project (WSDP) grant from KES5.7 billion to KES3.43 billion.

As a result, they have urged the Senate to reject the budget cuts and push for revisions before approving the final budget. The county bosses noted that the reduction in county allocations contrasts with a KES114 billion increase in national government expenditure under the recently enacted Supplementary Appropriation Act, 2025.

Additionally, the governors insist that counties should have access to the Road Maintenance Levy Fund because both the county and national governments undertake maintenance with funds drawn from fuel levy. 

Meanwhile, the Treasury has attributed the budget cuts to low absorption rates of additional allocations in the current financial year.

However, the governors have dismissed this explanation and further labeled it  a misrepresentation of the challenges faced by counties and a reflection of the national government's approach to the devolution agenda. 

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