Uhuru’s frequent flier diary strains State House budget

 

President Uhuru Kenyatta (left) is received by Deputy President William Ruto at the JKIA upon arrival from Lusaka, Zambia, where he attended the burial of President Michael Sata last year. PHOTO | FILE 

By KIARIE NJOROGE, gkiarie@ke.nationmedia.com

In Summary

• Questions arise over the value to the taxpayers of President’s frequent travels abroad.

President Uhuru Kenyatta has made at least 24 foreign trips in the past one year, underlining his frequent-flier status that has turned the spotlight on the cost to the taxpayer.

Nine of the trips have been in the past three months causing a strain on the Presidency’s budget that became apparent in January when Treasury secretary Henry Rotich sought Parliament’s approval for an extra Sh50 million to cater to Mr Kenyatta’s local travel needs.

Official data shows that the Presidency has already exceeded its recurrent budget allocation for the fiscal year ending June 30 by Sh300 million with travel spending as the main driver.

Concerns over the cost of the President’s foreign trips mounted last week after it emerged that 84 people would be accompanying him to the inauguration of Nigeria’s president-elect Muhammadu Buhari.

Mr Kenyatta’s foreign trips have particularly come under scrutiny because the majority have been made to countries Kenya trades the least with, bringing into question what value the taxpayer is getting for the money spent.

The President’s travels, which at times have lasted for a week, have not escaped the attention of keen followers of the country’s diplomacy who expected them to be aligned to the pursuit of economic agenda that the Jubilee government set upon coming to office in May 2013.

“Foreign trips should be minimised, not just because of expenses, but also because they create an impression that our leaders are running away from problems at home,” said XN Iraki, an economics lecturer at the University of Nairobi.

Mr Iraki said the President’s many trips abroad are not only hurting in terms of the direct costs to the taxpayer but also because they set the tone for other public officials to waste public funds on foreign trips.

During his travels, Mr Kenyatta is usually accompanied by large delegations, including the security detail and senior government officials who draw hefty sums in travelling allowances.

READ: Uhuru, Ruto exceed OP budget amid austerity call

Senior members of a presidential delegation reportedly receive a daily out-of-pocket allowance of up to $400 (Sh40,000) while the government directly pays for their food and accommodation.

The Controller of Budget’s (COB) half-year report for the period ending December 2014 indicated that the Presidency consumed Sh75 million in foreign travels — Sh15 million more than what was spent during a similar period the previous year. The Presidency consists of the offices of the President and the Deputy President.

But the budget-bursting impact of Mr Kenyatta’s frequent-flier lifestyle lies in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs which in the corresponding period spent Sh604 million on foreign travel, a huge growth over the previous year’s Sh416 million.

The Foreign affairs ministry is the one that foots the bill for the members of the President’s delegation during a foreign trip. This year alone, Mr Kenyatta has travelled thrice to Tanzania and twice to Ethiopia to attend regional summits, mostly to resolve political crises in South Sudan and Burundi.

On February 2, the President was in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, as the rapporteur of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (Igad), to witness the two warring South Sudanese factions sign a peace deal following months of bloodshed.

He has more recently travelled twice to Tanzania for regional talks on the Burundi crisis that erupted last month after President Pierre Nkurunzinza announced his intention to run for a third term.

Mr Kenyatta who was sworn in on April 9, 2013 made at least 10 foreign trips in his first year in office when he visited Russia, China, the United Kingdom, South Sudan, Qatar, Uganda and Tanzania.

Last week’s cancelled trip to Nigeria was the second in as many months after his visit to the United States was put off after he left on a flight to Dubai.

Reports of the large number of public officials lined up for the Nigeria trip caused a public furore with many Kenyans taking to the social media to question what value it would bring to the taxpayers.

“It’s a waste of tax payers’ money. Why should they travel when Kenyans are faced with hunger, insecurity and floods,” asked Robert Ndung’u.

The President also travelled to Algeria in March for a three-day State visit and was in Khartoum on Tuesday for the inauguration of the recently re-elected Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir.

The management of the travel budget is becoming contentious for Mr Kenyatta’s administration, which has on several occasions called for austerity even as the figure continues to rise.

A government austerity directive issued in April 2014 to cut on foreign trips among other expenses has failed to tame the travel budget.

Mr Kenyatta has also suffered a public relations disaster for his foreign trips as happened last year when terrorists attacked and killed more than 25 people in Mandera while he was in the United Arab Emirates to attend a Formula 1 event.

Mr Kenyatta’s local travel budget has also come under scrutiny, causing him heavy criticism for the extravagance he showed last week when he went on a 13-helicopter inspection tour of the standard gauge railway in the Tsavo.

Foreign travel budget abuse has in the past year become a symbol of public funds misuse especially in the counties where governors and members of the county assemblies (MCAs) spent millions of shillings on trips whose value to the taxpayer could not be determined.

MCAs were accused of spending Sh3.6 billion in foreign and local travel in the year to June 2014, prompting the Auditor-General to start an inquiry into some of the expenditure.

Members of Parliament are also trying to push for a reversal of their foreign travel perks, which were cut in December by the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC).

The legislators are now threatening to cut the Sh922 million budget that the Treasury has allocated the SRC for the year starting July should it fail to reverse the cut in foreign travel per-diem rates.