Executive Office of the President, Office of the Deputy President and that of Prime Cabinet Secretary requested a cumulative budgetary allocation of Sh29.5 billion during the preparation of the draft budget policy statement (BPS) 2023.

The amount requested by the three offices exceeds Sh27.51 billion that the State Department for Higher Education is still owed by the National Treasury in the current financial year to meet recurrent expenses such as paying lecturers.

The funding request was, however, shot down by the budget office, leaving the three with only Sh14.83 billion draft allocation in total, with Musalia Mudavadi’s Prime Cabinet Secretary office suffering the biggest blow, according to observations by the National Assembly Departmental Committee on Administration and Internal Security.

President William Ruto’s office was eyeing Sh13.93 billion for the full fiscal year from next July against a resultant BPS ceiling allocation of Sh8.25 billion, leaving it with a budget shortfall of Sh5.68 billion.

Ruto’s office argued that the ceiling allocation ignored the expansion of the roles that necessitated more funds, raising concerns about the austerity measures that were to limit spending to key priority areas amid revenue shortfalls.

The amount was to facilitate three programmes and seven subs-programmes during the period, meet the first lady’s programmes and initiatives, and finance statutory benefits for retired presidents, their deputies and other designated State officers. “The BPS ceiling of Sh8.25 billion did not take care of the expanded mandate for the Executive Office of the President. Some of the expanded mandate included Government Printer, Betting Control and licensing and the Kenya South Sudan Liaison Office,” said Gabriel Tongoyo chairing the Departmental Committee on Administration and Internal Affairs.

Budget allocation

He was defending his committee’s report on the 2023 BPS before the Ndindi Nyoro-led Budget and Appropriation Committee ahead of the final budget allocation in April. Tongoyo noted that the scrapping of the Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS) last November will see the office of the president incurring more expenses as it clears all the pending bills related to specific national government interventions.

The process of winding up the NMS operations, which has since been transferred back to Nairobi County, is ongoing, consisting of the transfer of contracts and pending bill verification to facilitate clearance. However, Rigathi Gachagua’s office got an additional Sh480 million in the draft BPS on top of the Sh4.05 billion initial request. The increment has been explained as due to additional responsibilities which previously were not funded.

They include coffee and Tea sector reforms and the Nairobi Commission which were placed under the Office of the deputy president through Executive Order No.1 of 2023. The resource requirement for the office of the Prime Cabinet Secretary witnessed the biggest haircut of about 80 per cent, leaving it with a draft budget of only 2.06 billion against Sh11.54 billion that it requested initially.

In the subsequent fiscal years, Mudavadi’s office, a newly established office, had placed its expenditure envelope at Sh13.15 billion for financial year 2024/25 and Sh14.65 billion in the following financial year 2025/26.

Tongoyo’s Administration Committee did not explain why Mudavadi’s office faced that massive funding rejection, only hinting that the Office currently operates just two State Departments of Performance and Delivery Management and Parliamentary Affairs.