The National Assembly’s Budget and Appropriations Committee Chairperson, Samuel Atandi, has said that the budget cuts proposed for Ministries and Departments are necessary, insisting that the country must spend within its means.

Atandi made the remarks as he urged Kenyans to prepare for tough measures that the Government seeks to adopt owing to the next Financial Year 2025/26 budget cuts but stated that they may reconsider some critical votes like for the examination.

“We have reached a stage where we must live within our means. That is one example… we are determined to ensure that we can only fund what we can afford using available resources. For important areas, my committee will make some considerations,” he said.

The MP made the remarks at a press conference ahead of the committee commencing its official sittings today.

“All departments are complaining about the cuts, and I want to say that we support the cuts as an effort to ensure that we live within our capacity. So, it will not be business as usual. However, for strategic and important votes, such as those related to exams, we are going to consider them as the Budget and Appropriations Committee, before we finalise our report,” he said.

Even as he lauded efforts by the current regime to bring the economy back to order, he hit out at the previous administration over what he described as gross mismanagement and misuse of public funds, high pending bills in addition to excessive borrowing, with little to show in development.

According to Atandi, at least Sh8 trillion was borrowed between 2013 and 2022, while only about Sh5 trillion was invested in development during the same period.

He called out the previous administration over the mismanagement of the economy.

“You are aware that the previous regime mismanaged the economy. One of the areas that was mismanaged in this economy is the fact that a lot of money was borrowed, which was not used for development,” he said.

He also explained: “From 2013 to 2022, we borrowed more than Sh8 trillion. But over the same period, the amount of money spent on development was less than half of that, because every financial year, we were spending about Sh500 billion towards development. If you do that in 10 years, you will have spent only Sh5 trillion in development, but the amount of money borrowed was about Sh8 trillion. That means there was mismanagement of the economy.”

Atandi also said that many projects were started, especially in the road sector, some of which could not be funded and in the long run, when the new regime came into force, it was addressing projects that had stalled.

“Contractors had gone to court. They were suing the government for interest and breach of contract. And the road sector is one of the sectors that has stagnated since the new regime came into force,” he said.

“When looking at the sectors that are going to support the growth of the economy, we identified construction as one of the sectors that will help us to grow the economy. But looking at the pending bills in that sector, we realized that they were choking and were affecting the growth of the economy and performance of the construction sector.”

To address this issue, Atandi said the Government developed the idea of securitization of a section of the Road Maintenance Levy Fund (RMLF) to avoid accumulating more bills, which has raised at least Sh60 billion and contractors have been able to resume their sites.

He took issue with the former chairperson of the committee, Ndindi Nyoro, saying he was part of this decision when it was mooted but is now terming it as ‘a scandal in the making’.

“I believe today, as he believed then that this idea was going to help us resolve the challenges we are having in the sector and so I take issue with him for recently proclaiming himself that this securitization of RLMF is also a scandal and is going to increase the borrowing portions that this country’s economy is not able to manage,” said Atandi.

He insisted the RLMF resources are being shared equitably and all contractors across the country have gone back to their sites since everybody is receiving the resources that are meant for Kenyan projects. 

“I want to challenge Nyoro that please, we beseech you to run away from tribal bigotry in the sharing of natural resources. It cannot be about one tribe; it cannot be about one region. Allow the country to move on by embracing equitable sharing of public resources so that every part of this region can benefit because this country belongs to all of us.”

He said that in this financial year alone, the Government will spend about Sh1 trillion in interest payment for public debt, which is a substantial amount of money.

At the same time, he defended the President’s frequent movement around the country, saying it is part of public participation, and sometimes those who accompany him use their resources.

He also said that the resources used for renovating the State House have been blown out of proportion, saying it is a measured project that is necessary.