Kenyatta National Hospital. Doctors at the Kenyatta National Hospital and Machakos Level Five Hospital are now able to consult instantly via a video link. FILE PHOTO |
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The Kenyatta National Hospital has received an additional Sh296 million to finance a Cancer Centre for Excellence that it has proposed to set up.
This comes as the national referral hospital grapples with broken cancer treatment machines which have seen many patients put on long waiting lists.
The Kenyatta National Hospital and the Kenya Prisons Service top the list of beneficiaries of a reorganised Supplementary Estimates that also raises security docket allocation to Sh57.07 billion, the largest in 2014/15.
The changes follow last week’s adjustment of the mini budget — which provides Sh41.5 billion for recurrent expenditure and Sh15.6 billion for development — by the Budget and Appropriations Committee.
The hospital has received an additional Sh296 million to finance a Cancer Centre for Excellence that it has proposed to set up.
This comes as the national referral hospital grapples with broken cancer treatment machines which have seen many patients put on long waiting lists, with dates for dialysis and other treatment stretching to next year.
But the additional funding to KNH will come at a great cost to HIV/Aids patients whose Sh225 million allocated for food supplements in the current budget has been reapportioned to finance the cancer facility.
The committee also took Sh71 million out of the Sh77 million allocated to Mathari and Nanyuki hospitals for validated bills to finance the cancer centre at KNH.
The balance of Sh6 million from the two hospitals’ budget has been reallocated for payment of pending bills for the ongoing construction works at Mathari Teaching and Referral Hospital.
The committee chaired by Mr Mutava Musyimi also reallocated the Sh200 million set aside in the supplementary estimates of the Ministry of Interior vote for the national government restructuring programme.
The money has been given to the Prisons Service to help it offset pending bills, construct houses for staff, improve staff remuneration, implement reforms in the service and decongest prisons.
The Appropriations Act, 2014 appropriated a total of Sh1.18 trillion for ministerial and departmental spending comprising Sh685.54 billion for recurrent and Sh494.89 billion for development.
“The approval of the Supplementary Estimates I by this House will effectively increase overall discretionary expenditure to Sh1.24 trillion from Sh1.18 trillion approved in the Appropriations Act,” Mr Musyimi said in the report to the House.
The committee however expressed concern that the supplementary estimates do not propose any new sources of revenue to fund additional expenditure.
“A careful review of the budget exchequer issues for the first half of the year indicates that some of the ministries being considered for additional funds have low absorption rates. The details in this supplementary budget should have indicated the actual spending for some of these programmes to date,” the committee said.
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