NAIROBI, 31st March – The Senate has unanimously passed a Motion this afternoon, adopting the County Governments Grants Bill Report. With the approval of this agreed version of the Bill by both Houses, a legislative instrument shall allow county governments to access approximately KES. 39 billion in grants and loans from the national government and donors for the current financial year.

Critical resolutions made by the Mediation Committee include-

The 12th Ordinary Session of The Forum of Parliaments of the Member States of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (FP-ICGLR) will be held in Nairobi, on April 2-6, 2022.

The conference is organized by the General Secretariat of the FP-ICGLR, in collaboration with the Parliament of the Republic of Kenya.

NAIROBI, 22 March - The Mediation Committee on the County Governments Grants Bill today met key stakeholders to deliberate on the contents of the Bill and end the stalemate that has so far locked out KES 39 bn in grants and loans from national government and development partners to the counties.

The Bill was published and passed by the Senate and transmitted to the National Assembly for concurrence. The National Assembly considered and passed the County Governments Grants Bill with amendments on 2nd December, 2021 which were subsequently rejected by the Senate.

MOMBASA, 10th March, 2022 - National Assembly, Judiciary hold consultative forum, agree to ringfence the JSC budget

The Proposal to ringfence the budgetary allocation for each arm of government in law today dominated a consultative forum between the National Assembly and the Judiciary. Members attending the forum noted that such a move could in the short term be made by amending the Public Finance Management Act, but in the long term be properly anchored in the JSC Act.

Thursday 17th February 2022 marked the beginning of a stronger partnership between the Senate and Council of Governors (COG) following an inaugural meeting between the two institutions. The Senate Liaison Office organised a courtesy visit by the CEO of COG, Ms Mary Mwiti, to the Clerk of the Senate/Secretary, Parliamentary Service Commission, Mr Jeremiah Nyegenye, to discuss ways to strengthen the collaboration between the two institutions.