Chief Justice David Maraga. FILE PHOTO | NMG
The Judiciary received a slight reprieve after MPs voted to
increase its budget by Sh1.5 billion for fear of upsetting the World
Bank.
The courts had earlier received Sh17.3 billion
for 2018/19 financial year, down from the Sh31.2 billion they requested
for recurrent and development expenditure.
The Treasury had told MPs on Wednesday that it would review Judiciary budgets give some of the funds belonged to the World Bank.
“The Judiciary Sh1.5 billion is a World Bank fund and could be
reinstated in the budget and could be introduced due to exceptional
circumstances,” Treasury secretary Henry Rotich told the lawmakers.
The fresh allocation, however, is short of the Sh3.45 billion the Judiciary had requested.
In
making a case for additional funds after the initial budget cuts,
Judiciary said it needed Sh100 million for anti-corruption cases, Sh100
million for clearing backlog of cases and Sh1 billion for capital
projects.
The Judiciary had earlier warned that
clearance of the current backlog of cases would stall after the Treasury
slashed its budget.
The courts had argued the additional resources will be required to hire more staff.
“There are only 150 judges, 450 magistrates, 50 kadhis against a population of 40 million,” argued the courts.
“This
cannot be compared to countries such as such as Canada that have a
similar population but over 3,000 magistrates and judges.”
Chief
Justice David Maraga said in July the Treasury budget cut would force
the Judiciary to suspend operations of more than 50 mobile courts across
the country, derailing efforts to clear a backlog of cases.
The Judiciary had targeted to determine cases older than five years by December.
A
number of corruption cases have been transferred to Nairobi in the
drive to stamp out graft, which has seen the arrest and prosecution of
dozens of public officials and businessmen.
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