Treasury accused of spending money not authorized by parliament

A section of Members of Parliament are now accusing the Treasury of flouting the Constitution and Public Finance Act by spending money which had not been authorized by parliament.

Led by Garrisa town MP Adan Duale, the MPs also accused the ministry of allocating the monies on projects that do not meet the threshold of article 223 of the constitution.

According to the lawmakers the Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Information and Communications are some of the beneficiaries of alleged illegally allocated money.

But the allegations were dismissed by the Leader of Majority in the National Assembly Dr Amos Kimunya who termed them as baseless.

He clarified that the authorization process was above board.

Kimunya also dismissed allegations that the alleged illegal expenditure was above 10 per cent of the sum appropriated by parliament in the 2021-2022 financial year period.

Budgets and Appropriations committee chair Kanini Kega also dismissed the claims as a section of MPs termed the concerns as tactic to delay the process.

Speaker Justin Muturi is set to rule on the matter on Wednesday.

The National Assembly has approved an overall increment of 139.7bn shillings for the first supplementary estimate for the financial year 2021/2022 from an initial 138.8 billion shillings.

However the first supplementary estimates 2021/22 is still facing headwinds after legislators questioned the constitutionality of the process.

A section of lawmakers say article 223 of the constitution and the Public Finance Management Act have been breached including the 10% threshold in supplementary allocations and allocations of projects under emergency or unplanned expenditure.