Nairobi — Devolved units have been urged to seek alternatives ways of raising own revenue as opposed to relying on the National Government.

Treasury Cabinet Secretary Njuguna Ndungu expressed that in the last ten years counties have performed dismally in harnessing generation of own sources revenue to meet the development needs of counties.

"Counties should work on raising their own revenues which is important but hasn't happen very well in the last ten years, something that we really need to step up," he said during the devolution conference.

In the last financial year,counties have been facing a cash crisis following the late disbursement of the equitable share by the National Treasury.

With the delays in the disbursement of the equitable share across the 47 counties, the county bosses have focused on paying salaries to avoid stifling operations in counties.

The cash crisis facing the government has forced the devolved units to focus on recurrent expenditure with minimal spending on development projects.

In the third-quarter report released by Controller of Budget (COB) Margret Nyakang'o on Wednesday only 12 percent of the budget released to counties between July 2022 to March 2023 was used to finance development projects.

In the figures released, in the Sh239.67 billion released to counties, only Sh29.73 billion was spent on bankrolling development projects.

The aggregate development expenditure allocation requires that at least 30 percent of the budget be allocated for development programs.

The huge chunk of Sh135.85 billion (56.7 percent) was channeled to pay salaries while Sh74.09 (30.9 percent) billion was used on operations and maintenance.