The National Treasury has raised the State House budget by 47.7 per cent in the revised spending plan tabled in Parliament.
The budget was boosted to Sh1.89 billion for an unidentified expense, automobile purchases, and local travels to sustain President Uhuru Kenyatta in office till the end of June.
Treasury secretary Ukur Yatani is seeking MPs’ approval to raise the State House affairs budget from Sh3.98 billion to Sh5.88 billion.
The ‘other operating expenses’ allocation has now seen an addition of Sh1.05 billion to the Sh1.2 billion tabled last year.
An additional Sh41 million has been channeled for machinery purchase as well as an additional Sh20 million car maintenance budget.
This undisclosed budget item has nearly doubled from Sh1.2 billion that was presented and approved by MPs ahead of June last year.
The car purchase budget for Kenyatta’s office has increased 30 times from Sh10 million to Sh300 million, backed up by an extra Sh25 million for fuel to Sh98.9 million.
On the other hand, the Deputy President’s office budget has been revised slightly from Sh1.41 billion to Sh1.43 billion, while a fresh allocation of Sh31.6 million shall go towards refurbishing Former Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s office.
This is the second time in the Covid-19 environment that the State House has received additional money in a supplementary budget.
In April 2020, for State House affairs the budget was increased from the initial Sh4.56 billion to Sh5.13 billion at a time the President had announced that he had taken an 80 per cent pay cut.
