The World Bank report 2013/2014: Spending More or Spending Smart? released on Wednesday February 6, 2015 highlighted some areas of concern to the Council of Governors. It should be noted that comprehensive and objective interpretation of the report reveals that the county governments are effective.To begin with, the report acknowledges that counties performing fourteen devolved functions received a paltry 20% of total expenditure which is an uphill task but the counties have risen to the occasion. At the same time, the World Bank reports that the cost of rolling devolution is high coupled by a hefty public wage bill. The report notes that devolution is work in progress for years (even for decades). In addition, it points out that it takes years for counties to develop the capacity to undertake services, fine-tune functional assignment across tiers, and hence fine-tune the grant arrangements to finance these functions.On another note, the report indicates that only 63% of budget was executed and not 100%. The World Bank therefore is not cognizant of the fact that low budget execution resulted from delay in transfer and budget ceiling effected by IFMIS system programmed to lock after a specified period.On revenue projections, the report indicates that forecasts are ambitious with limited revenue raising efforts, where counties only managed 43 percent of their target. What is left out, apart from effects of putting in place frameworks for revenue collections, the report is oblivious of double taxation resulting from national government overlap thereby minimizing counties revenue base. Still on revenue, an outstanding success story is overlooked:

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