How Sakaja used more money on foreign travel than development
Pressure continues to mount on Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja to explain how he using bilions of Shillings allocated to the County by Treasury and the. Own Source Revenue.
A review of the Controller of Budget report for the 2023/24 FY Half Year shows the county used more funds on foreign and domestic travel than it used on development expenditure.
The County Executive led by Sakaja used Ksh 475.06 million for domestic travel,Ksh 115. 65 million for foreign travel making traveling expenditure alone bigger than the amount used for development.
At the same time, the county incurred Kshs.465.04 million on development programmes, representing a decrease of 49.9 per cent compared to a similar period of FY 2022/23 when the County spent Kshs.927.33 million.
The County used Ksh 60 million on hospitality supplies ,Ksh 47 million in training expenses,another Ksh 41 million in specialised supplies and Ksh 10 million in communication supplies.
A breakdown of the foreign travel indicates the Governor and his executive used Ksh 8,993,450 million on a personal branding and people professional summit ,Ksh 8,782,764 million to attend the 8th United Nations General Assembly Summit in New York,unexplained trip to Canada costing Ksh 6 ,761,520, per diem for a conference in Switzerland costing Ksh 5,368,497 and a Japan trip that cost Ksh 5,080,800 million
This is even as pressure mounts on Governor Sakaja to explain how he only spent 3 percent of monies approved on development out of the Kshs10.81 billion on development and recurrent programmes in the reporting period between July and December 31,2023.
Expenditure on development programmes represented an absorption rate of 3.3 per cent, while recurrent expenditure represented 36.6 per cent of the annual recurrent expenditure budget.
This comes hot on the heels of the Auditor General’s report that has flagged the county for fraudulent payments to suppliers and flawed procurement processes.
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