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Public officials, cash-strapped Kenya Airways, security officers and the Kenyan railways are the main winners of the expansion proposed by Cabinet Secretary Ukur Yatani of the current year’s budget by 120 billion shillings.
A supplemental budget presented in Parliament yesterday will see the 2020/21 budget reach Sh3 trillion, a four percent growth over the previous financial year’s spending.
A supplemental budget is a request for additional funds over the course of a financial year.
“(The supplemental budget) seeks to address interventions related to Covid-19, provisions for expenses related to security, pending invoices, salary deficit and phase IV of the evaluation of positions, changes in projects funded by partners for development and reduction of expenditures to achieve the overall objective level of fiscal deficit, “says CS Yatani.
The national airline Kenya Airways is set to get a total of Sh10 billion from two different allocations. The first is Sh8 billion, to allow the airline to maintain basic operations during and after the Covid-19 pandemic.
Another 40 million shillings is being earmarked for a project to support the airline’s public debt management. These will be assigned through the vote of public financial management of the National Treasury.
Car grant offer
The second cash injection into KQ is through its parent ministry, the Department of Transportation, where it has been given another Sh2 billion cash injection to also cushion against the impact of the global health crisis that has severely affected the air Transport.
There are still no funds for the next referendum on the new budget, in which the Treasury has only allocated Sh621 million to the Independent Electoral and Boundary Commission (IEBC) for several by-elections.
There is also no provision for the 4 billion shillings car grant agreement to the district representatives as an incentive to pass the Referendum Bill.
The Department of Transportation will receive another Sh11 billion, which will be shared between air and rail transport.
Of this, the Treasury has allocated Sh2 billion for the commuter rail project, Sh2.7 billion for the construction of the Naivasha Internal Container Depot-Longonot Rail link and Sh1 billion for the rehabilitation of the Longonot- gauge railway. Malaba.
Another Sh2 billion will go to the railway development tax collection which is used to repay the standard gauge railway loan, while Sh1.35 billion will be used for locomotive rehabilitation.
The infrastructure department will receive an additional 9 billion shillings to be used for, among other things, the upgrade of the 265-kilometer Lamu-Ijara-Garissa highway to an all-weather highway (2 billion shillings), the Nairobi highway ( 5.4 billion shillings) and Sh1. 6 billion for roads in informal settlements.
Service number
Urban and metropolitan development will get an additional Sh7.1 billion to address deficiencies in the Kazi Mtaani program delivery (Sh1 billion). Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS) and the Ministry of Water will receive 500 million shillings each.
The supplementary budget has also allocated an additional 1.9 billion shillings to the Office of the President, most of which will go towards the NMS health service delivery plan for Nairobi County.
“The provision is to address emerging challenges as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic in the densely populated informal settlement areas, as well as to decongest the Kenyatta National Hospital,” the supplemental budget notes.
The Department of the Interior will raise an additional 2.85 billion shillings to support the security operations of the multi-agency team and operationalize 10 sub-counties.
The controversial Huduma Namba will get another additional funding of Sh500 million, while Sh300 million will go to security operations.
The Ministry of Defense will receive an additional Sh3.1 billion. This will be used to deal with operations related to containment of the spread of Covid-19 (250 million shillings), while the Kenya Meat Commission (KMC), which is now under the command of the army, will receive other 687 million shillings. About Sh2 billion will be used for security operations, while Sh259 million will be spent on dredging the Kisumu 7 Mbita ports.
Donor-funded projects
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A total of Sh25.6 million will be used for the Kenya-Italy debt development program, while Sh132 million will support a donor-funded project under the University Education department.
The Treasury has also allocated Sh2.5 billion to service the Kenya Mortgage Refinancing Company (KMRC), which is positioning itself to help increase uptake of homeownership loans in the country.
In total, the Treasury has approved expenditures amounting to 83.4 billion shillings, comprising donor-funded projects of 16.8 billion shillings and 2.1 billion shillings for the railway development fee.
The Treasury says that by December 2020, the government had collected total revenue of Sh800.1 billion, against a target of Sh907.7 billion. This performance was below the target at Sh107.6 billion.
Revenue was Sh726.4 billion, against a target of Sh802.2 billion, a return below Sh75.8 billion.
However, total spending in the period, including transfers to county governments, stood at Sh1.1 trillion against a target of Sh1.2 trillion. The shortfall of 98.5 billion shillings was attributed to insufficient absorption of current and development expenditures by the national and county governments.
