Siaya — Lobby group has threatened to sue the government for retaining the bulk of health care budget at the national level.

The Operation Linda Ugatuzi lobby group will take the government to court for failure to release the bulk of the health care budget to the counties, group leader, Professor Fred Ogola has said.

Prof. Ogola said it was ironical to have 65% of the health care budget retained at the national level while the health functions have been devolved.

Addressing the media in Siaya town, prof. Ogola challenged president William Ruto to be sincere with Kenyans whether his administration was just offering lip service as far as devolution was concerned and ensure that resources follow devolved functions.

"The national government has put 35% of the health budget to the counties yet health care is 100% devolved. How can the national government retain 65% of the budget?" he posed.

He said that the lobby group wants 80% of the health care budget pushed to the counties to enable ordinary citizens' access quality care.

Prof Ogola said that should the government not heed to their call and the parliament passes the finance bill in its current form, Operation Linda Ugatuzi will move to court to challenge the bill.

He said that the lobby group has identified 50 illegalities in the finance bill that are violating the constitution.

"50 sections of the constitution have been violated by the finance bill, among them a section that calls for prudent allocation of resources" said the professor who cited the allocation of sh. 350 billion shillings t projects that he alleged had been undertaken by the previous government.

He said that among such projects was the digitization of identity cards and huduma cards that, he added, had already been undertaken. - Kna