Parliament has reorganised the Treasury’s Sh4.29 trillion budget that has seen the military emerge as the biggest winner with an additional Sh13 billion allocation, in a review that cut allocations to education, tourism and sports.
The Budget and Appropriations Committee (BAC), which oversees and reviews the budget, added Sh33.01 billion to the estimates that Treasury had submitted to Parliament ahead of the formal budget reading today.
The reorganisation has seen the spending towards the Executive, the Judiciary and parliament swell to Sh2.538 trillion compared with Sh2.505 trillion that the Treasury had proposed to the house.
In the changes, the Defence Ministry has been added Sh13 billion or 39 percent of the Sh33.1 billion, with Sh2 billion going to recruitment of additional officers, Somalia operations (Sh5 billion) and other security operations (Sh6 billion).
This will take Defence’s total budget to Sh214 billion from the earlier Sh201 billion.
The reorganisation has also seen the roads transport added Sh4.962 billion, in a move that marks a reversal from the current budget when many roads’ projects suffered cuts in the supplementary budget that was announced after Gen Z protests forced government to shelve the Finance Bill 2024.
However, the parliamentarians have dealt a blow to the education sector, where secondary education funding has been cut by Sh4.076 billion as that of university and primary education saw cuts of Sh920 million and Sh405 million respectively.
A similar fate befell the Sports Ministry with a Sh1.13 billion cut.
The cuts on secondary education funding include Sh3 billion spending towards capitation, a Sh2 billion cut in Junior Secondary School funding and Sh250 million cut in ICT integration projects in secondary schools. The changes saw primary schools lose Sh900 million that has been proposed as part of their capitation.
Parliament has trimmed funding to government-sponsored students in private universities by Sh1.3 billion, hived off Sh250 million from the development budget for the construction of an engineering complex at the University of Eldoret and a similar cut from the Open University.
In what signals a move to calm the universal healthcare staff (UHC) that have been on strike for over three months, parliament has allocated Sh1 billion as recurrent spending for UHC workers and a further Sh1.1 billion for the recruitment of more workers.
However, this came with a Sh2 billion reduction of the recurrent budget of the Emergency, Chronic and Critical Illness Fund.
The public financial management vote saw several cuts amounting to Sh6.02 billion, comprising a Sh400 million drop in budget reserves and a similar cut from the Contingency Fund. From the same vote, Parliament also cut Sh330 million from renewal of IT licences and Sh400 million from Public Sector Accounting Standards Board.
Parliament’s other major cuts are Sh1.45 billion from General Administration Planning and Support Services, Strategic Response to Public Initiatives (Sh2.5 billion), Equalisation Fund (Sh1 billion), Kenya Hunger Safety Net Programme (Sh1 billion) and Sh1.28 billion from Tourism Promotion Fund.
The office of the Auditor-General has also been hit with funding cuts. Parliament has made a Sh5.68 billion cut in the budget for auditing national government books while the budget of county government audit and special audits has been cut by Sh2.11 billion and Sh556.05 million respectively.
Parliament’s reorganisation has seen the budget of the Executive settle at Sh2.462 trillion from the Sh2.428 trillion that the National Treasury had proposed.
The cuts in the Auditor-General's office came even as the quality assurance and standards vote has been allocated an additional Sh5.9 billion recurrent budget for examination administration and investigation.
The Sh1.13 billion net cut in sports was mainly as a result of Sh3.35 billion cut in the development budget for the Sports Arts and Social Development Fund and Sh5.31 billion in the recurrent budget of Kenya National Sports Council as the budget of Anti Doping Agency of Kenya was increased by Sh5.31 billion.
The affordable housing project, which is among Kenya Kwanza’s key projects, has received a Sh2.87 billion boost with Sh1 billion additional recurrent allocation towards the Affordable Housing Board as Sh1.5 billion additional allocation has been made towards casual labourers.
The roads transport’s additional Sh4.96 billion allocation has been distributed among various projects, with Sh2.581billion boosting the kitty of equitable distribution of roads across the country.
Other areas that have received boost include Sh2 billion additional allocation for the acquisition of land for Land Settlement Fund while the Office of Inspector General’s recurrent budget has been increased by Sh800 million with Sh150 million earmarked for very high frequency radio communication.
An additional Sh430 million has been added to Agriculture and Food Authority’s recurrent budget for the purchase of seeds and seedlings for priority value chains.
The power transmission and distribution budget has been increased by Sh1.52 billion, while urban and metropolitan development vote has been allocated extra Sh1.25 billion.
Government estimates that it will raise Sh3.328 trillion as ordinary revenue and Appropriation-in-Aid while Sh916.5 billion will come from domestic and external borrowing.
The budget of Parliament has dropped to Sh47.99 billion from Sh49.49 billion while that of Judiciary moved to Sh27.78 billion from Sh27.69 billion respectively.
Government plans to spend Sh1.09 trillion on debt service in the 2025/26 financial year while Sh405 billion will go to counties.
