The cost of running the national government fell marginally in the first quarter of the current financial year ending June 2024 after the end of the electioneering period, the latest data shows.
The Ruto government spent Sh268.10 billion on administration, operations, and maintenance as well as salaries and wages in three months through September, a 2.90 percent drop compared with Sh276.11 billion in the same period in the year before.
The Sh8.01 billion year-on-year fall in day-to-day running costs for the executive, Parliament, the Judiciary, and independent commissions is largely on account of reduced expenditure on elections following the conclusion of the hotly-contested polls in the first quarter of last fiscal year.
The data published by Treasury Cabinet Secretary Njuguna Ndung’u shows the recurrent expenditure for the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) plunged to Sh544.52 million from Sh10.33 billion, signalling the cost of the usually high-stakes elections on taxpayers.
Excluding the IEBC’s recurrent cost, the expenses for the day-to-day running of the national government remained largely flat-lined compared with last year, having risen by 0.66 percent, or Sh1.77 billion, to Sh267.55 billion.
The cost of running, maintaining, and remunerating workers has in recent years been overtaken by the ballooning debt servicing expenses, underlining the impact of commercial loans contracted in the last decade to put up much-needed roads, bridges, power plants, and a modern railway line.
In the three-month review period, for example, debt costs gobbled up Sh347.22 billion, overtaking the day-to-day cost of running government, including salaries and wages, by 29.51 percent, or Sh79.13 billion.
The Ruto administration has struggled to cut recurrent expenditures since coming to power a year ago, pledging to slash the expenses of the predecessor regime by up to Sh300 billion in the last fiscal year.
This was evident when the recurrent expenditures for the year ended June were Sh43.17 billion more than the Sh1.18 trillion that had been budgeted by the Uhuru Kenyatta’s administration.
In a fresh move to rein in growth in the recurrent expenditures, Head of the Public Service Felix Koskei said the State will no longer reimburse expenses incurred on trips taken for benchmarking and study visits, training and related capacity-building initiatives, research, academic meetings and symposia undertaken by government officials.
Other expenses targeted in the fresh austerity attempt include conferences and meetings of general participation, side events and exhibitions, and meetings and events of committees and associations.
“Public institutions wishing to travel and participate in any of the pipeline events in the above categories are required to request for virtual participation where available and, alternatively, engage the Ministry of Foreign and Diaspora Affairs to ensure on-the-spot participation of diplomatic officials in the country of reference,” Mr Koskei wrote in the memo.
