President Uhuru Kenyatta has called for austerity measures to cut down on government expenditure both at the national and county levels.
During his address during the governors summit at Sagana State Lodge in Nyeri, Uhuru stated that government officials will reduce travel and expense allowances by 60 per cent.
“ The National and County Governments have committed to achieve a 60 percent reduction in travel and allowance expenditure across all government organs.” Uhuru said.
He said this will be help to direct more resources from recurrent expenditure to development.
The head of state also said that a commission will be formed to analyze functions of the national and county government to avoid duplication and wastage of resources.
“A commission will be formed to identify and differentiate roles y the two levels of government to ensure that devolution delivers the intended constitutional benefits to the citizens of this great nation.” Uhuru stated.
Uhuru also promised to have the overall funding in absolute terms to County Governments be increased year to year.
President Kenyatta further directed counties to cooperate and accept any form of support from the national government.
“I call on counties not to look at the national government as trying to belittle them in the eyes of the people because what matters is that we uplift the life of every Kenyan,” he said.
The austerity measures come after several county assemblies spent huge amount of public money in foreign tours that were not directly beneficial to the people.
Uhuru has also been on the spot from his critics for what they say are too many foreign trips.
President Kenyatta has so far been on 43 taxpayer-funded trips since his election into office in 2013.
The controller of budget capped the cost of the presidency’s foreign trips at Sh1.2 billion in the financial year that ended in June 2015.