The National Treasury has increased ministerial allocations for the current fiscal year (2025-26) by more than the regulatory threshold of 10 percent, with top beneficiaries, including the State House, holders of pending bills and Registrar of Persons.
In a supplementary budget tabled in Parliament on Wednesday, the Exchequer disclosed a plan to increase ministerial spending by Sh287.4 billion, which is an 11.3 percent rise, which breaches the set limit of 10 percent.
This means Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi will have to seek special approval from the legislature to spend the extra money.
“The gross ministerial expenditure in the full year 2025-26 supplementary estimates number 1 has increased by Sh287.4 billion, reflecting an increase of 11.3 percent from the original approved ministerial estimates exceeding the limit set under Article 223 of the Constitution of Kenya,” said Mr Mbadi in the budgetary statement.
“In this regard, in line with the constitution, the National Treasury is requesting the Parliament for special approval of the full year 2025-26 supplementary estimates number 1.”
Main beneficiaries
The overall change requested by the Treasury is Sh316.7 billion, or a 13.5 percent increase, when allocations to the county government are included.
Parliament has in the past approved the Treasury’s actions, which are usually attributed to unexpected events and spikes in the cost of goods and services.
Main beneficiaries of the increased spend will include the State House, which had overshot its full-year recurrent budget allocation by January, the seventh month of this financial year.
The Treasury has increased the State House affairs budget by Sh8.4 billion, equivalent to the initial annual allocation, underlining the high administrative cost of running the Presidency.
Mr Mbadi has earmarked Sh1.3 billion in the Office of the President, which will be used to pay pending bills. This could signal some hope for contractors who supplied the defunct Nairobi Metropolitan Services, whose pending bills were absorbed by the State House.
The Department for Immigration and Citizen Services has been allocated an additional Sh4.39 billion for mobile programmes for the issuance of national identity cards.
Issuance of national identity cards is expected to pick up ahead of the 2027 General Election.
Out of the additional expenditure for which the Cabinet Secretary is seeking approval, Sh185.8 billion has been disbursed. Some of the areas which the government has already spent money on include Sh3.88 billion used to pay outstanding arrears to the university lecturers’ collective bargaining agreement of 2017.
Expenditure performance through the first six months of the present financial year shows the government surpassed its target for recurrent spending due to increased receipts on operations, maintenance, and debt service, while disbursement to development and counties suffered as a consequence.
Kenya’s recurrent spending has remained persistently high, driven by wages, allowances and operational costs across the government.
This has seen the Treasury urge ministries, departments and agencies to align their spending with quarterly ceilings, warning that early exhaustion of budgets undermines fiscal planning and forces unplanned allocations.
