Uhuru gets Sh212m more for travel, entertainment despite austerity calls

 

President Uhuru Kenyatta with his deputy, William Ruto (right). PHOTO | FILE 

By KIARIE NJOROGE

In Summary

• State House has been allocated an extra Sh30 million for local travel, pushing the budget to Sh206.9 million.
• The catering and entertainment budget has been revised upwards by Sh182 million to Sh583 million.

President Uhuru Kenyatta received an extra Sh212 million for domestic travel and entertainment amid the Jubilee government’s calls for spending cuts in non-priority areas.

Data contained in a mini-budget tabled in Parliament last week shows that State House was allocated an extra Sh30 million for local travel, pushing the budget to Sh206.9 million.

The catering and entertainment budget was revised upwards by Sh182 million to Sh583 million.

Mr Kenyatta has over the past several months criss-crossed the country in both official and political missions with taxpayers catering for the President and his entourage, which includes security and a press team.

An austerity drive by his administration that has targeted the hospitality, travel and allowance budgets has failed to gain traction with the Presidency receiving extra allocations for these items in several supplementary budgets.

The drive was meant to shift public spending to farming and building roads, ports, railways and power plants among other productive sectors of the economy.

The increase in the domestic travel budget adds to the President’s foreign trips that have been criticised as too frequent. In March, Mr Kenyatta received an extra Sh300 million for foreign travel.

READ: Uhuru, Ruto offices burst budget amid austerity call

State House and the Foreign Affairs ministry have defended the external trips, saying they are for the benefit of the country.

In 2014, President Uhuru Kenyatta and Mr Ruto offered to take a 20 per cent pay cut to set the tone for other senior government officials in what was seen as the start to the austerity drive.

The government has previously announced several measures including introduction of travel wallets for senior State officers but these have had minimal impact.

Mr Kenyatta had last year said that the travel wallets were “to reverse the perverse incentive of government officials travelling as a way to earn money.”

In February, he asked all government agencies including county governments to cut their budgets for travel and allowances to public officers by 50 per cent.

The Treasury last month surpassed its annual domestic borrowing target by Sh49.2 billion