This archive report was first published on 21 June 2020.
Kenya's national government has been criticized for its lavish spending habits, particularly in the area of travel expenses. According to the latest Controller of Budget report, the government spent a staggering Sh12.1 billion on travel expenses between July last year and March this year.
Despite the Treasury's austerity measures, the government's hospitality expenses also gobbled up Sh4.5 billion during the same period. This is a significant amount, especially considering the government's failure to meet its development absorption expenses target of 75%.
The country's development funds uptake was only 60.8%, a 15% shortfall from the target. Universities and colleges took the bulk of the development money at Sh255 billion, followed by construction and civil works at Sh65.2 billion and refurbishment of buildings and infrastructure at Sh44.5 billion.
On a positive note, the country recorded an increase in the amount remitted to the consolidated fund compared to the previous year, at Sh1.8 trillion, representing 67% of the revised annual target of Sh2.7 trillion. This represented an increase of 6.2% over a similar period of financial year 2018/19 when receipts stood at Sh1.7 trillion, as stated by Controller of Budget Dr Margaret Nyakang'o in the report.
County governments received Sh207.3 billion, while government ministries and departments got Sh723 billion as recurrent expenditure. Nairobi County had the highest recurrent expenditure of Sh10.5 billion, with only Sh625 million going to development over the six months.
Interestingly, the report shows that the national government expenditure in the last nine months dropped significantly from 63.5% in the 2018/2019 financial year to 62.9% this year.
Of the 1.8 trillion the national government received from the Exchequer, Sh463.6 billion was set aside for development, while ministries and state departments gobbled up Sh775.6 billion in recurrent expenditure, with the remaining Sh518.3 billion going to the consolidated fund.
Dr Nyakang'o also decried the late submission of budgetary allocation reports by ministries and county governments, stating that all accounting officers should ensure that expenditure reports are submitted not later than 15 days after the end of each quarter.
