Tourism Cabinet Secretary Rebecca Miano has found herself in hot water with Members of Parliament (MPs) for her failure to attend a National Assembly Departmental Committee on Tourism and Wildlife session during the Budget Estimates for the Ministry of Tourism 2026/27 deliberations.

Taking it to their social media handles on Monday, May 11, 2026, the Parliament has noted that the lawmakers, headed by Committee Chairperson Maara MP Kareke Mbiuki, blamed the CS for failing to attend the vital meeting for the second time in a row, which they say is undermining the parliamentary budget scrutiny process.

The committee’s frustration was exacerbated after Tourism Principal Secretary John Ololtuaa told MPs that CS Miano was at State House preparing for a dinner to be attended by delegates at the Africa Forward Summit.

“Waziri should choose her priorities right. Today’s budget meeting was extremely crucial to her ministry, and she cannot skip it because of other assignments,” Mbiuki said.

The Maara MP also said that the CS had not attended another budget meeting the previous week, thereby putting further delay on critical allocations for the ministry.

“She missed her last meeting, at which we were supposed to discuss budget issues, which would have been decided on the success of today’s sitting, last week,” Mbiuki added.

Voi MP Abdi Chome also issued a scathing criticism against the CS over his lack of showing up before the committee to defend the ministry’s financial plans.

“The CS should have been here a lot sooner than members today to discuss what is being done on the various projects by the ministry,” Abdi said.

Lamu East MP Ruweida Mohamed was displeased, saying that she had to incur additional expenses to reschedule her travel arrangements so she could attend the sitting.

She said that she had to pay a fee to reschedule her flight to Mombasa to be able to attend the deliberations in the ministry on financing development programmes, but the CS had decided otherwise.

Tourism ministry submits a budget of Ksh17.5B proposal

The committee, despite the absence of CS Miano, has allowed PS Ololtuaa to present the Ksh17.5 billion budget the ministry will propose for the 2026/27 financial year.

The PS did, however, face some criticism following its inability to account for a few of the spending amounts in the ministry’s submissions.

The MPs questioned him on the fund allocation for projects, which was not reflected in the financial documents presented before the committee, adding he should be removed from the meeting for the second time to prepare the documents properly.

The chairperson of the committee further commented on the committee proposing enormous sums of money for projects that are not reflected in the financial document.

“Budget is a matter of figures, not stories; since you are not equipped, you have to be sent back,” Mbiuki said.

The Ministry of Tourism will come before the committee on Wednesday to defend its 2026/27 budget estimates.