Deputy President Kithure Kindiki’s office is under fire after lawmakers uncovered that his office spent up to Ksh8 million on helicopter hire in a single day.
The Public Accounts Committee launched a formal inquiry on April 9, targeting Ksh478 million in unpaid bills owed to suppliers for the 2024/2025 financial year. Of that staggering figure, Ksh150 million went to helicopter services alone.
For a country struggling with high debt and a punishing cost of living, the numbers have ignited public outrage — and lawmakers are not backing down.
How Kindiki Chopper Spending Reached Ksh150 Million in One Budget Year
The Public Accounts Committee did not stumble onto this story by accident. Lawmakers reviewed expenditure records submitted by the Office of the Deputy President and found a pattern of helicopter spending that raised serious red flags. The records showed repeated multi-million-shilling entries for chopper hire across several counties, many of them linked to a single day of travel.
A Single Day, Ksh8 Million Gone
Rarieda MP Otiende Amollo did not mince words when he addressed the committee. He pointed directly to one entry that stood out above all others.
“There is a particular entry for a chopper to Tharaka Nithi, Laikipia, Isiolo, and Kitui, which shows Ksh8.08 million in one day,” Amollo told the committee.
He then pressed the obvious question that every Kenyan taxpayer would ask: “Many of the entries get to 3 to 4 million. Is it practical to spend 8 million in one day?”
The committee did not receive a satisfying answer. Instead, PAC chair Tindi Mwale offered a brief and widely criticized defence, stating that “the deputy president has the right to go home and come back.” That response failed to address whether the trips were for official government business or personal travel — a distinction that matters enormously when public funds are involved.
Trips to Tharaka Nithi Raise Conflict-of-Interest Questions
Lawmakers specifically flagged the frequency of helicopter trips to Tharaka Nithi, Kindiki’s home county. The committee questioned whether the government was effectively funding personal travel for the Deputy President under the cover of official duties.
This is not a trivial concern. Public finance law requires that government resources serve public purposes. If the chopper hire records show repeated trips to a home county without clear official justifications, that raises a direct conflict-of-interest question that the committee is now pursuing with documented evidence in hand.
The PAC demanded that the Office of the Deputy President submit a full breakdown of how the Ksh8 million was spent within one week. It wants receipts, itineraries, and proof that each flight served a legitimate government function.
Flowers, Catering, and the Full Picture of Wasteful Spending
The helicopter bills were not the only line items that alarmed the committee. Lawmakers also scrutinized spending on hospitality, which included catering services, on-site staff, food, and fresh flowers. The committee pushed hard on whether these expenses represented value for Kenyan taxpayers.
Accountability was a recurring theme throughout the session. The committee also flagged a critical institutional failure: the Office of the Deputy President lacks a functioning audit committee. That oversight body is a legal requirement for public institutions—and its absence means that nobody inside Kindiki’s office has been independently checking whether money is being spent correctly.
Without an internal audit committee, wasteful or irregular spending can go undetected for months, if not an entire budget year. That is precisely what appears to have happened.
The Office of the Deputy President responded by saying it is working with the National Treasury to manage budgetary constraints and reduce pending bills. It also pledged to improve expenditure management going forward. But promises of future improvement do not explain Ksh150 million already spent on helicopters, or Ksh8 million charged to the public in a single day.
Kenya’s public debt burden continues to squeeze ordinary citizens through high taxes and rising prices. Against that backdrop, Kindiki’s chopper spending of this scale is not just a financial question—it is a political one. The PAC has one week to get its answers. Kenyans are watching.
