Ministry of Interior Tops List of High Entertainment Expenditure Spenders

The austerity policy has been ignored as ministries spend more than required for their entertainment in nine months to March.

The ministries reportedly increased the entertainment expenditure by 1.55 billion shillings, going against the deficit-cutting policy put in place to curb wastage on non-essential spending.

Reports from the Controller of Budget (CoB) shows that the highest on the list that spent a lot was the ministry of Interior, headed by Dr Fred Matiang’i, which in the nine months spent 1.08 billion shillings on entertainment, an increase from 241 million shillings spent on the same the previous year.

The Presidency was second on the CoB list as it emerged that 758 million shillings had been spent on entertainment in a span of nine months.

Other ministries and departments that appear on the CoB list of high expenditure are the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Treasury.

A total of 3.8 billion shillings had been allocated to be spent on hospitality, but the four ministries spent 2.4 billion shillings in nine months to entertain and host guests.

The remaining public offices were left with the 1.4 billion shillings remaining from what the other four ministries had spent.

The president had earlier on called on ministries to cut costs on what he said were ‘non-essential’ issues such as travel and entertainment.

Even after this, the expenditure on entertainment shot to 11.9 billion shillings from the previous 8.5 billion shillings even after government officials were barred from travelling abroad or locally without a presidential clearance.

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