Kindiki's wife splashes Sh44.5 million in six months

A Controller of Budget's (CoB) analysis on budget spending has shown that the Office of the Spouse of the Deputy President incurred an expenditure of Sh44.52 million in the first six months of the Financial Year 2025/26.

This has raised questions on how the office received the funds despite having no allocation by the National Assembly.

This is contained in the CoB Margaret Nyakang’o National Government Budget Implementation Review report (NGBIRR) for the period July 1, 2025 and December 31, 2025.

“An analysis of the Office of the Deputy President’s programme and sub-programmes performance showed varied fund utilization and absorption rates. The Coordination and Supervision sub-programme fully depleted its budget, at 100 per cent absorption rate. The office of the Spouse of the Deputy President had no budget allocation in the period under review, but incurred expenditure of Sh44.52 million,” Nyakang’o said in the report.

However, that the office may have been facilitated through the Office of the Deputy President, which was allocated Sh3.07 billion in the current financial year compared to Sh3.22 billion allocated in the fiscal year 2024/25.

According to Nyakang’o, an analysis shows a sharp contrast in performance between sub-programmes.

She said all the domestic and foreign engagements for the Deputy President were coordinated, achieving 100 per cent of the target, while Consultative forums with MDAs and other actors on coffee value chain interventions was yet to record any output in the first six months of FY 2025/2026.

This came against the backdrop of President William Ruto directing the scrapping of the budgets of the offices of the first lady as well as for the spouses of deputy president and the Prime Cabinet Secretary.

The President issued the directive in 2024 as part of austerity measures to align government spending with reduced revenue.

This came hot in the heels of the Gen Z protests, even as the President declined to sign the 2024 Finance Bill, which had made proposals to generate Sh346 billion in additional revenue to finance the 2024/25 financial year’s budget.

The two offices were not allocated any funding in the current financial year.

As far as Office of the Prime Cabinet Secretary (OPCS) is concerned, Nyakang’o said the budget allocation in Financial Year 2025/2026 amounted to Sh356.64 million, compared to Sh958.15 million allocated in the previous financial year.

“Analysis of programme and sub-programme performance for the Office of the Prime Cabinet Secretary revealed that the Coordination and Supervision Services sub-programme had a budget absorption rate of 60 per cent, which exceeded the period’s target of 50 per cent, assuming linear budget utilization,” the CoB observed.

The OPCS assists the President and Deputy President in effectively coordinating and overseeing the formulation and implementation of national government policies, legislations, programmes, and projects to foster equitable and sustainable development.

In the first six months of FY2025/2026, Nyakang’o said the Government Coordination and Supervision Programme achieved full facilitation of PCS at 100 per cent, indicating adequate operational support.

“However, suboptimal performance was recorded in convening National Development Implementation Committee meetings (only one meeting held out of the target of four meetings) and developing and signing Memorandums of Understanding with Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) and partners (three collaborative frameworks developed out of the annual target of 12 frameworks),” she said.

At the same time, the report has also shown that development expenditure with the highest spending included Capital Transfers to the MDAs in subsidies, grants and direct transfers to Semi-Autonomous Government Agencies (SAGAs) at Sh169.55 billion, representing 62 per cent of the gross development spending.

Other major development expenditures were the Construction and Civil Works at Sh62.75 billion and the Purchase of Specialised Plant, Equipment and Machinery at Sh9.13 billion, representing 23 per cent and 3 per cent, respectively, of the gross development expenditure.

The State Department for Housing and Urban Development recorded the highest ministerial expenditure, in absolute terms, of Sh58.89 billion under the construction and civil works category.

The CoB said that the National Government’s original gross budget for FY 2025/26 was Sh4.69 trillion, compared to Sh4.37 trillion for FY 2024/25.

This comprises Sh744.84 billion for ministerial development expenditure, which was 16 per cent of the original gross national budget and 29 per cent of the original gross ministerial budget of Sh2.55 trillion.

Recurrent allocation comprised the ministerial recurrent allocation of Sh1.8 trillion (38 per cent of the original gross national budget) and Consolidated Fund Services (CFS) at Sh2.14 trillion (46 per cent of the original gross national budget).

The education sector received the highest budget allocation of Sh703.07 billion, followed by Energy, Infrastructure and Information Communication Technology at Sh534.63 billion, reflecting their key role in the economy.