Thursday, March 9, 2023 –It has emerged that, immediately, after winning the August 9 election, Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua’s office quickly demanded sh 1.59 billion from the National Treasury.
According to the documents seen by Citizen Digital on Wednesday March 8, the Office of the DP under Mr.Gachagua, through the former State House Comptroller Kinuthia Mbugua, wrote to then-Treasury CS Ukur Yatani on September 7, 2022, requesting for sh 1.59 billion funding to “implement urgent planned activities.”
Mr. Mbugua stated that the Office was experiencing an increase in activities and also needed to facilitate programs of the Office of the Spouse of the Deputy President, therefore, the approved budget for the Financial Year 2022/23 was not enough.
“The allocated approved budget for the FY 2022/23 under the Deputy President services program is not adequate to cater for the expenditure for the planned activities. The Office of the Deputy President, therefore, requests for additional funding for various expenditure items…” read part of the letter.
Gachagua’s office intended to spend sh1.59 billion on purchasing motor vehicles of sh 300M, other operating expenses sh 550 million, domestic travel sh 140 million, hospitality sh 330 million, maintenance of motor vehicles sh 70 million.
Additionally, other expenses included foreign travel sh 40 million, maintenance of buildings sh 20 million, refurbishment of buildings sh50 million, purchase of furniture and fittings sh 50 million and Refined fuels and lubricants sh 40 million.
The Office of the DP therefore pressured Yatani to approve the expenditure in line with Article 223 of the Constitution.
In response, the former Treasury CS wrote back to the former Comptroller Kinuthia Mbugua in a letter dated September 21, 2022, informing him that it would not be possible to release the sh 1.59 billion. He ended up approving only sh 500 million.
This debate was triggered on Tuesday by the current Controller of Budget Margaret Nyakang’o who claimed that she was coerced by the State into approving irregular payments amounting to sh 15.5 billion in the run-up to the August 9th, 2022 election.