Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich. PHOTO | SALATON NJAU
The Treasury has allocated Sh2.7 billion to the multi-agency team to fight corruption in the country.
The government has also set aside Sh1.25 billion to pay Evanson Waitiki whose more than 900-acre farm was compulsorily acquired to settle squatters in Likoni, Mombasa.
The Treasury has also factored in Sh1.4 billion in the mini-budget that was spent during the El Niño rains last year.
Treasury secretary Henry Rotich said the money has been allocated to the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC), the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), the Directorate of Criminal Investigations, the National Intelligence Service and the police to combat corruption.
“We have allocated the money towards multi-agency war on corruption. The EACC, DPP and all the agencies dealing with corruption have been given the money to undertake the war expeditiously,” Mr Rotich told the Liaison committee during the scrutiny of the Supplementary Budget I, 2015/16.
Kigumo MP Jamleck Kamau questioned the huge allocation to the anti-graft agencies saying the war on graft is yet to bear fruit.
“Despite this gross amount of money being allocated on the fighting graft, there is no tangible results that Kenyans have seen,” he said adding that the money should have been allocated to Lamu Port, South Sudan Ethiopia Transport (LAPSETT) corridor project.
Mr Rotich who was accompanied by PS Kamau Thugge said the Treasury had been increasing allocations to the agencies over the past two years.
“There was talk that we were not putting enough money on the DPP, EACC and Judiciary. Because of high prioritisation that the President (Uhuru Kenyatta) put on this, we assessed the resource requirement for effective fight against corruption,” Mr Rotich told the committee chaired by deputy Speaker Joyce Laboso.
He said the budget for the war on corruption amounted to Sh2.7 billion for the five agencies that fight graft.
“We had funded them but we needed to add additional resources to scale up its war. Whether this is priority than LAPSETT, this is certainly important. The fight against graft is key. In view of very many issues that came up about corruption, we had to provide these funds,” Mr Rotich said.
The Treasury has presented a Sh41 billion budget to meet expenditure for the year ending June 2016.
Mr Rotich said the mini budget was arrived at following cuts in recurrent and development expenditure.
“The overall development expenditure remains at 47.5 per cent of the total national government ministerial budget while recurrent expenditure is 52.5 per cent,” he said.
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