MPs in foreign travel craze to empty kitty ahead of budget

Anthony Mwangi and Mercy Mwai

MPs have in the last two months embarked on countless foreign trips as they race against time to exhaust their travelling kitty ahead of the budget speech set for Thursday next week.

The mad rush to spend money meant for travelling is to ensure that no cash is returned to the National Treasury as the law stipulates that funds not used by the end of the financial year are surrendered back to the Exchequer.

The National Assembly has set aside Sh1.2 billion in the 2021/22 financial year for foreign and domestic travels. This figure excludes the Speaker’s budget of Sh212 million for foreign travel and another Sh160 million for domestic trips.

MPs who did not want to be named but admitted benefitting from the trips revealed that in the past two weeks, more than 120 lawmakers and parliamentary staff had travelled to Dubai on a benchmarking exercise.

Official trips

“There is a crisis here in Parliament; almost all members have travelled outside the country. Imagine in the last two weeks alone, 120 MPs and staff have gone to Dubai, if you want to confirm, some of the photos are on social media,” said the source who did not want to be identified for fear of casting lawmakers in bad light.

The latest mad rush for foreign trips comes hot on the heels of a five-day trip to Dubai by some 16 MPs in March this year to attend a financial training course.

The participants were drawn from the Finance, Budget, Public Investments, Public Accounts and Special Fund committees.

It is estimated that each MP gets an allowance of Sh143,000 a day when on an official trip abroad.

Based on Kenya Airways billing, for instance, a return ticket to Dubai on business class would cost Sh125,000. This translates to about Sh15 million on air tickets for the legislators and staff.

Today, three groups comprising 17 MPs and parliamentary staff each are expected to travel to Addis Ababa, Arusha and Kampala, as part of the benchmarking exercise.

This group of MPs will have Covid -19 tests done at the expense of the Parliamentary Service Commission (PSC) at a cost of Sh8,000 each. This besides other benefits they get including having their tickets and accommodation catered for.

Similar tests are conducted on members returning to the country from any destination abroad.  “The tests are done exquisitely at high-end hospitals at a cost Sh8,000,” said a source who sought not be named due to the sensitivity of the matter.

Apart from those travelling abroad, the legislators, who did not want to be named as they are not authorised to speak on behalf of the National Assembly, revealed that for the last two months, at least 50 people including parliamentary staff have been making trips outside the country on a weekly basis.

So bad is the situation that some of the MPs have been allocated more than one trip and are only making a stopover in the county on to other destinations.

“There are members who are even having three trips; they are only making a stopover in Kenya to connect to their new destination,” said the source.

Scheduled meetings

The lawmakers are travelling at a time when accommodation charges, air tickets and food prices have skyrocketed due to the Covid-19 pandemic that has rendered many Kenyans jobless.

The rush to travel abroad was brought made public yesterday when activities of various committees including that of the Budget and Appropriation, which has been meeting since Wednesday, stalled.

The committee, chaired by Kieni MP Kanini Kega, had scheduled meetings with chairpersons and vice-chairpersons of various House committees to allow them defend their budgets and pave the way for a final meeting with the National Treasury top mandarins led by the Cabinet Secretary Ukur to fine-tune their proposals ahead of the budget reading next week.

However, by Wednesday evening, only a few committees had appeared before the committee. “Out of five committees lined up to appear only one showed up,” our source said.

Only Sports, Culture and Tourism vice chairperson Lemein Korei showed up to defend budgets of the various ministries and departments under the committee’s docket.

During yesterday’s session, the same situation played out as only the chairperson of the Agriculture committee Silas Tiren, Environment Committee Kareke Mbiuki and that of Trade Adan Haji are said to have showed up for the session. Haji appeared before the committee during the afternoon session.