Governors, county officials and MCAs of 30 devolved units did not travel out of the country in the first three months of this fiscal year.
A new report by Controller of Budget Margaret Nyakang’o shows expenditure on foreign trips has gone down for the first time in many years.
The report shows counties spent Sh97.2 million on foreign trips in the first three months of the financial year as compared to Sh324 million spent in a similar period last financial year.
Counties where officials did not travel outside the country include Baringo, Kiambu, Machakos, Elgeyo Marakwet, Migori, Kwale, Kajiado, Embu, Taita Taveta and Tana River.
Homa Bay, Turkana, Kericho, Mombasa, Samburu, Mandera, Murang’a and Wajir also did not spend a dime on foreign travel.
Others were Kisii, Meru, Uasin Gishu, Kitui, Kirinyaga, Isiolo, Tharaka Nithi, Marsabit, Trans Nzoia, West Pokot Vihiga, Lamu and Nyamira. Since the advent of devolution, there has always been uproar on county spending on foreign trips.
County officials, including MCAs,
have been on endless benchmarking trips whose value is always a subject of
debate.
Last year, governors and county officials caused concerns after it emerged counties spent Sh17 billion on the globetrotting sprees.
Nyakang’o’s report reveals some counties have not taken a trip in the period under review for the second consecutive year.
They include Baringo, Homa Bay, Isiolo, Kajiado, Kirinyaga, Kisii, Mandera, Tharaka Nithi, Trans Nzoia, Uasin Gishu and West Pokot.
In various reviews, Nyakang’o has termed the spending on foreign trips as possibly ‘wasteful expenditure’.
Trans Nzoia Governor George Natembeya recently dismissed the trips, saying he spends the money on development.
“Travelling abroad is overrated. In 2023-24, we would have spent Sh8 million on travels abroad, which we saved and used for other things like providing milk for our nursery school children,” he said.
The report, however, shows governors, county officials and members of county assemblies from 16 counties still blew millions in foreign trips.
Despite the cash crunch, which saw many counties nearly grind to a halt, the 16 devolved units spent nearly Sh100 million in three months.
Some of the big spenders include Busia (Sh20 million), Nyeri (Sh17 million), Kisumu (Sh16.2 million), Laikipia (Sh12.8 million), Makueni (Sh9 million) and Nairobi (Sh6 million).
Others are Nakuru (Sh3.6 million), Narok (Sh3.6 million), Siaya (Sh2.6 million), Kilifi (Sh2.6 million) and Nandi (Sh1.2 million).
Nyakang’o’s report paints the picture of the appalling reasons for some of the trips.
For instance, it emerged that six Busia executive officials travelled to China to benchmark on rainwater harvesting, spending Sh3 million in the long run.
Some travelled to Canada, Egypt, New York for various conferences while 14 members of the county as sembly used Sh6 million for a workshop on governance in Dubai. Singapore and Dubai were the officials’ most favourite destinations for Nyeri MCAs.
Eighteen Nyeri MCAs spent Sh6.5 million while in Arusha to learn about the East Africa Legislative Assembly.
They told the budget boss they travelled to “learn some of their practices and structure of the East Africa Community and its organs”.
A month later, taxpayers footed
Sh1.7 million for two Nyeri county assembly officials to travel to Dubai.
The report shows they went for a “leadership through the vision of developing and implanting organisational excellence” workshop. Eight other Nyeri county assembly officials spent Sh4 million to travel to Singapore for a “facilitation skills training course”.
Governor Anyang’ Nyong’o’s Kisumu also spent Sh16 million, some of whose details were not properly disclosed.
The county spent Sh2.8 million on two officers from the executive for what management stated as “various meetings” in the US.
Four officials spent Sh1.3 million for a training in Uganda and Sh1 million went to an officer who travelled to Singapore.
Other officers spent county cash to attend a thanksgiving ceremony in Uganda in August, while others landed in Singapore, Pennsylvania, Mauritania and Colombia.
Taxpayers paid Sh870,000 for an officer to travel to Pennsylvania to attend an event hosted by “endless mountain mercy” charity group.
The findings contradict a government circular, which suspended non-essential travel for all public officers to trim wastage.
Head of Public Service Felix Koskei in October 2023 issued a directive to all national and county government agencies to halt the unnecessary trips.
The circular expressly banned travels for benchmarking and study visits, trainings and related capacity building initiatives, conferences and meetings of general participation.
State agencies were warned against trips for research, academic meetings and symposia, side events, exhibitions, caucus and association meetings.
Sponsored events, which often attract the need for supplementation in terms of quarter per diem and ticket upgrade were similarly suspended.
Public officers were directed to use virtual platforms where available or have the diplomats in the various countries to attend the events.
But 31 Laikipia county assembly officers travelled to Uganda between September 15 and September 22 for training, spending Sh12.9 million.
In the Koskei orders, delegations were trimmed to three for Cabinet secretaries, two for PSs, one for state corporations and three for governors.
The days were also capped at seven for the various groups, a directive some county governments breached as per the Nyakang’o report.
It has emerged some officers spent several
weeks in the trips, if not months for select cases like Kisumu, where two
officers spent two months in the US.
Members of Makueni county assembly also spent Sh8.9 million in Türkiye for a training on “driving organisational change”.
Another lot spent four days in Tanzania to attend the “3rd African Outstanding Professionals Award” spending over half a million.
Governor Johnson Sakaja’s Nairobi county carried three officers to Geneva, Switzerland, spending taxpayers’ Sh4.7 million.
Seven officers of Nakuru county assembly travelled to London at Sh3.6 million for a training on “corporate governance and board effectiveness”.
Nandi spent Sh1.2 million on officials who travelled to the UK for a workshop on emergency fire response and Rwanda for a forum on food systems.
Narok officials went to Italy and Germany for an industrial tour, spending Sh1.9 million and Sh1.6 million to USA for the “12th World Wilderness Congress.”
In Garissa, an officer from the
assembly travelled to Britain for “international conference on social science,
humanities and education”.
