Auditor reveals Kiambu spends least on trips, keep travels local
By Oliver Musembi, July 11, 2024Kiambu county executive has been cited as the only devolved unit in the country with minimal expenditure on foreign trips.
According to a report by the Controller of Budget (CoB) Margaret Nyakang’o regarding the counties’ status of budget implementation, Governor Kimani Wamatangi and his executive team did not travel abroad during the 2023/24 financial year.
However, on the contrary, the County Assembly, which is the legislative arm, is reported to have gobbled up Sh65 million in foreign travel over the same period.
The trips by members of the County Assembly were mostly for training sessions in East African countries and Dubai since the beginning of this year, according to the CoB’s report.
The report covering the first nine months of the financial year reveals that, in contrast to most counties where foreign travel by governors and their ministers costs millions, the County Executive only spent Sh883,037, with Wamatangi and ministers taking no trips abroad.
Karate team
It shows that Sh789,372 was used by the executive to sponsor a Karate team for the International Championship games in Berlin, Germany, while Sh93,665 was used to support a team from Transport Department that visited Tanzania and Rwanda for a study on bus operation policy and management in the Nairobi Metropolitan Area.
“Expenditure on foreign travel amounted to Sh65.87 million and comprised Sh65.17 million by the County Assembly and Sh0.70 million by the County Executive,” says the report in part.
The Governor confided to the People Daily that rather than travel abroad and incur huge costs, he decided to engage foreign investors through online meetings in order to cut costs.
“I am one of the governors who have never boarded a flight to travel outside the country because, to me, that is a waste of resources that can be used to transform people’s lives,
“I have contracted to engage foreign investors and partners through modern technology, and it has yielded results. I have focused on serving the people, and that is why I have afforded time and resources for the people of Kiambu,” explained Wamatangi.
The sponsored Karate team ‘Dragons Karate Academy’ returned with a haul of trophies and medals (four trophies in kumite (sparring) and three medals in kata (forms), and they have set their sights firmly on the upcoming United Kingdom National Championship.
Soon after taking over Kiambu leadership as the fourth county chief, Wamatangi who is renowned for his strong stand on responsible resource management, came under fire from a section of county officials and a faction of elected leaders after he banned local and international seminars and benchmarking visits.
He instead issued an order to all county officers, including himself, mandating the holding of workshops and seminars that previously quickly passed for sponsored events in expensive hotels, at a tent in the county headquarters premises as part of austerity measures.
The county staff subsequently gave the tent the moniker “Vasha,” the short form for Naivasha, since whenever they schedule a meeting, even one that would last three days, they joke that it will take place at the Naivasha tent, which has a concrete floor and a red carpet and is capable of hosting over 100 people.
Run affairs
The governor also holds his meetings with the management team and other guests at the tent and even hosted President William Ruto during one of his visits to Kiambu town in August last year.
Wamatangi says that often, the trips, common in regional governments, are a waste of public resources that should have been used for development and service improvement, while the time officers spent on the trips would help run county affairs.
“Officers used to spend up to ten million shillings on per diem and other expenses when they flew to Mombasa and Naivasha for a week to prepare a Sh10 million project. Officers and their aides would travel to Naivasha three times a month, twice to Kisumu and Mombasa, for workshops, some of which were very unnecessary. Officers would never even travel, yet they would still sign the per diem,” the governor said.
“Sometimes, they even organized one or two trips abroad for benchmarking. Ultimately, the county would spend about a billion shillings on travel alone. That is why Kiambu was unable to carry out serious development, but that has stopped and that is why we have gotten such a rating from the CoB.”