National Treasury Disburses 40 Billion Shillings To Fight Covid-19

Someone said that the deadly Coronavirus was welcomed in Kenya with a bag of red roses. The virus was actually received with smiles and hugs on a red carpet.

As Kenyans continue being worried about what will become of the economy, where their next meal will come from and whether their employers will be able to sustain them, others are making a killing.

By the time the deadly Coronavirus will be over, few indivisible will be smiling all the way to the bank for they will have become overnight billionaires without dropping a sweat.

It is like as Covid-19 continues to sweep across the country, there are those in government who are seeing it as a jackpot and praying that it goes on not just for months but for years.

Funds Disbursed

The National Treasury says that it has disbursed 40 billion shillings to help in the fight against Covid-19. This is without the funds from Kenyan corporations and businesses, as well as monies from the World Bank.

Before getting ahead of ourselves, I would like to understand what 40 billion shillings mean. Let us start with such simple questions as; what is a billion? What does it mean to have a billion in your bank account?

What is a billion? A billion is written as 1,000,000,000 (it is one million one thousand times.) If you were given a billion and told to use 10,000 shillings per day, it will take you 100,000 days to finish or 275 years to finish.

If you were given 40,000,000 and told to use 10,000 per day, it will take you 11,019 years to finish. That is what we mean when we talk about BILLIONS.

Back to the fight of Covid-19, according to the National Treasury of the 40 billion shillings disbursed for the fight against Covid-19, 33.4 billion shillings have been used to “conduct operations” while 6.9 billion shillings have been spent on “development and other capital investment” to support the fight against Covid-19.

Speaking to Members of Parliament, CS Ukur Yatani said that the government has availed another 1 billion shillings that will be used to hire additional health workers.

The Ministry of Interior, headed by Dr. Fred Matiang’i has been given 200 million shillings to help them tighten security during the Covid-19 pandemic.

3.9 billion shillings have been disbursed to related health operations to help combat the virus while arid and semi-arid areas have been given 400 million shillings for both food and non-food products.

10 billion shillings have been allocated for tax refunds and other 10 billion shillings given for the elderly and the vulnerable. (The amount announced by the President was 8.5 billion shillings).

The National Intelligence Service has been given 1.5 billion shillings to boost their operations in tracing contact persons while 13 billion shillings have been given for pending bills.

The Budget 

The coming of Covid-19 has hit hard in Kenya’s economy, forcing the government to spend more than what had been budgeted for, creating a hole of about 385 billion shillings.

The National Treasury, in its supplementary, budged wanted parliament to approve an additional 62 billion shillings for recurrent expenditure and 92 billion shillings for development.

The Budget and Allocation Committee approved 83 billion shillings for development and 31 billion shillings for recurrent expenditure.

READ: Nairobi Hospital Rolls Out Covid-19 Tests at a Cost of Ksh10,000