Civil servants and KQ among the big gainers in mini budget

Civil servants, the cash-strapped Kenya Airways, security agents and Kenya Railways are the biggest winners in Treasury Cabinet Secretary Ukur Yatani’s proposed expansion of the current year’s budget by Sh120 billion.

A supplementary budget tabled in Parliament yesterday will see the 2020/21 budget hit Sh3 trillion, a four percent growth over the previous financial year expenditure.

A supplementary budget is a request for additional funds in the course of a financial year.

“It (supplementary budget) seeks to address post Covid-19 related interventions, provisions for security related expenditure, pending bills, salary shortfall and phase IV of job evaluation, changes in development partners funded projects and scaling down of expenditures to achieve the targeted overall fiscal deficit level,” CS Yatani says.

National carrier Kenya Airways is set to get a total of Sh10 billion from two different allocations. The first is Sh8 billion, to enable the airline to sustain basic operations during and after the Covid-19 pandemic.

An additional Sh40 million is for a public debt management support project for the airline. These will be allocated through the National Treasury’s public financial management vote. 

Car grant deal

The second cash injection into KQ is through its parent ministry, the department of transport, where it has been given another Sh2 billion cash injection to also cushion it against the impact of the global health crisis that has heavily affected air transport.

There is still no funding for the upcoming referendum in the new budget, in which the Treasury has only allocated Sh621 million to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) for various by-elections.

Neither is there a provision for the Sh4 billion-sweetheart car grant deal to the ward representatives as enticement to pass the Referendum Bill.

The department of Transport will get an additional Sh11 billion, which will be shared between air and rail transport.

From this, the Treasury has allocated Sh2 billion for the commuter rail project, Sh2.7 billion for construction of the Naivasha Internal Container Depot-Longonot Railway link and Sh1 billion for rehabilitation of the Longonot-Malaba metre gauge railway.

Another Sh2 billion will go to the railway development levy kitty that is used to repay the Standard Gauge Railway loan, while Sh1.35 billion will be used for rehabilitation of locomotives.

The infrastructure department will receive an additional Sh9 billion that will be used for, among others, upgrading of the 265 kilometre Lamu-Ijara-Garissa Road to an all weather highway (Sh2 billion), Nairobi expressway (Sh5.4 billion) and Sh1.6 billion for roads in the informal settlements.

Huduma Namba

The urban and metropolitan development will get an additional Sh7.1 billion to deal with shortfalls in the provision of Kazi Mtaani programme (Sh1 billion). The Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS) and Ministry of Water will receive Sh500 million each.

The supplementary budget has also allocated an additional Sh1.9 billion to the Office of the President, the bulk of which will go to the NMS for health services delivery plan for Nairobi County.

“The provision is to address the emerging challenges as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic to the densely populated informal settlement areas as well as decongesting Kenyatta National Hospital,” the supplementary budget notes.

The department of Interior will get an additional Sh2.85 billion to cater for security operations under the multi-agency team and operationalise 10 sub-counties.

The controversial Huduma Namba will get another additional funding of Sh500 million, while Sh300 million will go towards security operations.

The Ministry of Defence will get an additional Sh3.1 billion. This will be used to deal with operations related to containment of the spread of Covid-19 (Sh250 million) while the Kenya Meat Commission (KMC), which is now under the military, will receive another Sh687 million. Some Sh2 billion will be used for security operations while Sh259 million will go towards the dredging of the Kisumu 7 Mbita ports.

Donor-funded projects

A total of Sh25.6 million will be used for the Kenya-Italy debt development programme, while Sh132 million will support a donor-funded project under the department of University Education.

The Treasury has also allocated Sh2.5 billion to cater for the Kenya Mortgage Refinance Company (KMRC), which is being positioned to help increase uptake of home ownership loans in the country.

In total, the Treasury has approved expenditures amounting to Sh83.4bilion, which comprise donor-funded projects of Sh16.8 billion and Sh2.1 billion for the railway development levy.

The Treasury says that by December 2020, the government had collected total revenues of Sh800.1 billion, against a target of Sh907.7 billion. This performance was below target by Sh107.6 billion.

Ordinary revenue was Sh726.4 billion, against a target of Sh802.2 billion, an under-performance of Sh75.8 billion.

However, the total expenditure in the period, inclusive of transfers to county governments, stood at Sh1.1 trillion against a target of Sh1.2 trillion. The shortfall of Sh98.5 billion was attributed to under-absorption in both recurrent and development expenditures by the national and county governments.
 
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