Transport Committee meets Cabinet Secretary over Supplementary Budget, constrained budget ceiling cited as hinderance to projects’ implementation

Transport Committee meets Cabinet Secretary over Supplementary Budget, constrained budget ceiling cited as hinderance to projects’ implementation

𝐍𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐀𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐥𝐲 
𝐓𝐡𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐝𝐚𝐲, 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝟔,𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟓

The Transport and Roads CS David Chirchir is seeking additional funding to enable the Ministry to effectively implement the government's bottom-up agenda albeit the country's fiscal challenge that has impacted the implementation of some of its planned activities.

Accompanied by his Principal Secretaries of Roads Eng Joseph Mbugua and his counterpart of Transport Mohammed Dagaar, the CS presented the FY 2024/25 supplementary II budget before the Committee on Transport and Infrastructure chaired by Ndia Mp Hon. George Kariuki.

Chirchir told MPs that the constrained budget ceilings viz a viz the huge portfolio of projects has resulted into a thin spread of budget allocations in an effort to cover all the ongoing projects. This thin spread results into immaterial allocations to projects that cannot finance credible output. 

PS Dagaar in his presentation informed Members of some funding gaps for consideration to ensure effective and efficient implementation of the planned output for FY 2024/25. 

"We also request for RDLF AIA adjustment by Kshs. 29.7 billion to cater for SGR Loan repayment of Kshs. 25 billion and Kshs.4.7 billion for development of SGR phase 2B and 2C and enhance operations and maintenance." says Dagaar

Members questioned the CS on why the State Department for roads has seen a number of projects budgets reduced to zero, especially those critical roads that were onboarded through the intervention of National Assembly as well as Donor-funded projects.

The CS informed the lawmakers that based on the approved budget but, owing to the thin spread, the Ministry would in tandem apply the exchequer as per the approved budget.

This has resulted in to a scenario where the Ministry utilizes a lot of exchequer but ends up having no output to show against the released exchequer since most contractors would not go back to work with the little exchequer allocated to his project.

To address this unfortunate situation and to atleast ensure some contractors go back to site, the Ministry requested and got an additional provision of Ksh 12 billion in advance of appropriation under article 223 of the Constitution. 

The CS in his conclusion called for a continued collaboration with the committee and acknowledged their critical role in ensuring adequate resources are allocated to the roads and transport sector.

For state department of Maritime PS Geoffrey Kaituko says status quo remains as the department continues to face alot of challenges due to budget constraints and is still calling for the intervation by the committee.

However the legislators have asked the PS to be proactive and come up with a proposal with tangible facts and figures that members can use to reconsider the departments allocation.