Kenya's spy agency has warned Parliament against effecting a Sh10 billion budget cut, arguing it will hit its efforts to secure the country against security threats including terrorism.
The National Intelligence Service (NIS) told Parliament that the massive budget cut will affect intelligence gathering, hiring of new officers and the ongoing construction of a hospital for its spymasters.
The Treasury slashed the budget of the NIS by Sh10 billion in an austerity plan for 2022/2023.
The Treasury cut the budget for security intelligence from Sh46.127 billion to Sh36.127 billion in the financial year ending June 30.
“The decrease of Sh10 billion is on account of budget rationalisation,” the Treasury said in Supplementary Estimates No.1.
The details of the Sh10 billion budget cuts were not disclosed in the supplementary budget as the Treasury only indicated cuts on security intelligence vote.
The Defence, Intelligence and Foreign Affairs committee told the Budget and Appropriations Committee (BAC) to reinstate the Sh10 billion that the Treasury cut from the NIS budget.
“We know that NIS does a lot of work to secure our country. The Sh10 billion is for recurrent expenditure including intelligence gathering, and recruitment of officers. NIS told us the budget cut will hamper their operations significantly,” Memusi Kanchori, the vice chairperson of the committee told BAC.
“Trust us to oversight NIS. If there is a way to reinstate the Sh10 billion, please do and if not get us even Sh3 billion since that will go a long way.”
Nelson Koech, who chairs the Defence, Intelligence and Foreign Affairs committee disclosed that part of the Sh10 billion will go towards the procurement of drones, training of officers and building a hospital.
NIS budgetary spending is not open to public scrutiny and its budget is usually presented as a single line item.
BAC chairperson Ndindi Nyoro sought to know the critical areas that will be affected should the Sh10 billion cut be effected.
He also asked Mr Koech to scrutinise the huge budgetary allocation to NIS to ensure value for money.
“I know that there are grey areas that we may need to audit as a committee but there is no need to punish the NIS as a department due to the ills of some people mandated to oversee the budget,” Mr Koech said.
Mr Koech said out of the Sh46.127 billion, the Treasury allocated Sh5.5 billion to the spy agency for development.
The Defence and Intelligence committee also asked BAC to reinstate the Sh4.4 billion budget cut to the Kenya Defence Forces.
