State House spending surge sparks debate on national priorities

By Patrick Wachira

The budget for Kenya’s various State Houses and lodges for the current financial year has almost doubled to nearly Sh17billion up from its initial allocation of Sh5.8billion.

We are talking of just about US$ 130million. To be gobbled up in a year. Even more troubling is the fact that these figures have been proposed in supplementary estimates, rather than in the main budget.

Nairobi State House is billed to spend some Sh4.84 billion, in just months.

It is not clear why the budget for the most famous address in the country has risen so sharply in recent years, up from just Sh4 billion four years ago.

Naturally, controversy has erupted and hard questions are being asked about why State House should be spending such obscene amounts of money just when other critical areas of national life receive a pittance.

We shall not even go into what precisely what the Office of the First Lady does to warrant a budgetary allocation of nearly Sh.1 billion.

Suffice it to say that these are figures that could easily transform, say, the provision of drugs, medical equipment and pay staff in many government hospitals. The money is enough to build dispensaries and health centres many times over.

Take cancer, for example. Its disease burden has escalated in recent years, with 44,000 new cases diagnosed annually and some 29, 000 deaths. Yet, over 70 per cent of new cases are diagnosed late because the victims are far from urban areas where screening facilities are found.

Of course, late diagnosis means most cases are too far gone to be usefully assisted. Nine women die daily from cervical cancer. Improved access to screening facilities would greatly help improve the situation.

The thrust of this argument is that the country has many pressing issues for which cash should be urgently channeled if lives are to be saved and /or improved.

We mention cancer at the onset because recent statistics indicate the bulk of new cases are younger people, at whose doorstep posterity stands. We are talking about the country’s very future.

Just a few months ago, reports said that dialysis machines at the country’s largest referral hospital, Kenyatta, were either dysfunctional or there were long queues of patients waiting to be attended to.

Indeed, it was said that some kidney patients wait for months to undergo dialysis. It is a sorry situation, yet, funds are being channeled to refurbish state houses and lodges. It is untenable.

The need for the State to tame profligacy and a high appetite for non-essential areas is urgent, especially looked at against the backdrop of inability to pay capitation for students under the new system.

With each student now allocated just a few hundred shillings, it defies all logic why we should channel funds to foreign travel for State officers who gobble up between Sh47,000 and Sh160,000 per day depending on rank and destination.

Despite pledges for increased austerity, the budget for foreign travel continues to go up. The Office of the President has spent Sh1.1billion in the first half of the 2025/2026 financial year. In the same period, Sh7billion has been used for both foreign and domestic travel.

These figures boggle the mind and speak loudly about a government that has refused or declined to heed its own advice to shun non-essential travel. For whom is such advisory issued and to what end?

In other words, the government and its agencies must desist from being a talk show and lead from the front on these and other pressing issues.

Serving in government must cease to be the ultimate opportunity to be part of a gravy train that aims to line pockets at the altar of service delivery.

The situation is further compounded by the increased taxation that has left the man in the street, so called hoi polloi, gasping for breath and unable to meet basic expenses.

It is more disturbing and dismaying that the budget operates on a huge deficit just to fund this crazy appetite for funds, a huge chunk of which cannot be accounted for. It is closely akin to spending what you do not have.

The reports of the Controller of Budget and Auditor General are replete with astounding figures: money that has been spent outside the approval of Parliament.

This cannot go on.

Accountability must be the watchword, even as we urge some sanity in how funds are allocated.

We must not be like the man who dons a Sh.20, 000 designer suit but collapses in the streets from starvation.

We must get our priorities right. And the time is now.

The author is a seasoned media professional and respected commentator on current affairs, Mr. Patrick Wachira.