Members of the Departmental Committee on Trade, Industry and Cooperatives have faulted the National Treasury for failing to release funds that have been appropriated to State departments.
The Committee chaired by James Gakuya (Embakasi North) observed that money was allocated to State agencies for various projects but yet to be released.
"There is no need for us as a committee to sit down and approve allocation funds to state departments and then the finances are not released to them," said Gakuya.
“As a committee, we will no longer accept to take the burden of Treasury.”
He directed that Treasury PS Chris Kiptoo to appear before the House team to shed light on why funds allocated to state agencies have not been released.
The chairperson was speaking when the Committee received submissions from State departments during consideration of the Supplementary Estimates No.1 for the 2024/2025 year.
During a meeting with Principal Secretaries Patrick Kiburi (Cooperatives), Susan Mang'eni (Micro Small and Medium Enterprises Development) and Hassan Abubakar(Investment Promotions), the committee established that money was yet to be fully disbursed to state departments, despite allocations being approved in the last financial year.
Among the funds is Sh4.5 billion for Coffee Farmers under the Cherry Fund programme, Sh350 million meant to modernise warehouses of the Kenya Grain Growers Cooperation Union and Sh4.5 billion that was supposed to fund the construction of County Aggregated Industrial Parks in 18 select counties.
During the separate sessions, Committee members led by Vice Chairperson Marianne Kitany (Aldai) raised reservations on the move by the three state departments to propose cuts to their development budgets.
"Cutting development budgets to different projects will lead to lose of jobs that would have been created for our young people," said Kitany.
The Committee will on Thursday receive submissions from PSs Alfred Kombudo (Trade) and Juma Mukhwana (Industry) on the Supplementary Estimates.
