State spends Sh70b on projects in six months

The government spent only Sh70 billion on development projects out of the allocated Sh783.22 billion in the first six months of the financial year 2023/2024, MPs heard yesterday.

Controller of Budget (CoB) Margaret Nyakang’o who appeared before the departmental committee on Finance and National Planning chaired by Molo MP Kimani Kuria said that the expenditure went against the Public Finance Management (PFM) Act that requires that development spending covers at least 35 per cent of total spending.

On recurrent budget, Nyakang’o told the MPs that the government spent a whopping Sh561 billion to pay for various expenses including paying salaries for employees. In her submission before the committee, the COB revealed that the recurrent vote received the highest proposition of the exchequer from the National Treasury at 85.2 percent as compared to the development vote which received the lowest allocation at 4.9 percent.

Recurrent estimates

Said Nyakang’o: “The total exchequer to Ministries Department and Agencies (MDAs) for the period was Sh731.41 billion (recording 34.7 per cent of the total MDAs revised estimates). This comprises Ksh70.41 billion for development (representing 15.4 per cent and the revised net development estimates) and Ksh561 billion for recurrent (representing 41.2 percent of the revised net recurrent estimates.”

And added: “In Financial year 2023/24, the initial gross development expenditure budget estimates were Kshs807.64 billion, which was revised to Kshs 783.22 billion in Supplementary Budget I, representing 31.8 per cent of the gross ministerial budget get of Kshs.2.46 trillion, compared to Kshs.715.35 billion allocated in FY 2022/23.”

On travel by the government entities, Nyakang’o said that in the last six months the MDA’s had spent Sh7.7 billion on domestic travel and Sh3.7billion foreign travel while on compensation of employees which includes basic salaries for permanent employees ,wages for temporary employees and personal allowances paid as part of the salary amounted to Sh291.28 billion representing 38.6 percent of the ministerial gross spending excluding the expenditure for National Intelligence Service (NIS)  and the Kenya Defense Forces both under National Security sector.

Expenditure on insurance she said was Sh12.48 billion, and rent and rates on nonresidential buildings was Sh4.3 billion, specialised materials and supplies was Sh4.92 billion while hospitality was Sh2.91 billion. With regards to specific funding of various sectors, General Economic and Commercial Affairs (GECA) sectors received the highest proposition of the exchequer issues at 8.1 per cent while Environment Protection, Water and Natural Resources (EPW&NR) sector received the lowest at 3.9 per cent.

Exchequer issues

She disclosed that on the development vote five MDAs received over 50 per cent of the exchequer issues, 11 did not receive any development exchequer, 19 received below the 10 percent proposition of the exchequer.