The report reveals that between September and December, State House spent Sh531 million on hospitality.
This translates to Sh4.8 million daily for the 109 days under review.
Between July and September, when Uhuru Kenyatta was in office, State House spent Sh29.8 million on hospitality.
The fresh revelations underline how spending by ministries, state departments and agencies on non-essentials is yet to dissipate.
Controller of Budget Margaret Nyakang’o's report shows that in the three months after Ruto's swearing-in, the entire government has been spending about Sh16 million per day on hospitality expenses alone.
Since assuming office on September 13, 2022, President Ruto has held numerous meetings with both political and church leaders.
He has also hosted a number of delegations, including by foreign missions seeking to strengthen ties with Nairobi.
The President has also adopted a style of attending a church service in select regions across the country every Sunday.
In this respect, the office’s expenses on the vote have increased from Sh430 million for the same period last year to hit Sh559.4 million this year.
The report released Thursday reveals that in total, state agencies have spent Sh351 billion on recurrent expenses.
A chunk of the monies went to unspecified recurrent expenses to the tune of Sh94 billion.
Travel – foreign and local, hospitality, legal costs, and training have equally taken significant portions.
The electoral commission also spent Sh200 million in hospitality between September and December 2022, pushing its spending on fringes to Sh1.8 billion for the first half of the year.
The commission also spent Sh515 million on legal fees, in what details the costs taxpayers bear on suits arising from those dissatisfied with poll outcomes.
The Interior ministry spent Sh509 million on legal fees, Sh962 million in respect of compensation for human-wildlife conflict cases, and Sh70 million for the State Law office.
The CoB report further revealed that the Interior ministry has spent Sh142 million on hospitality since the new administration took over, Sh108 million for the case of Foreign Affairs ministry, and Sh123 million for the case of the Judiciary.
The other big hospitality spenders in the 100 days reviewed are the National Treasury at Sh91 million, Sh106 million for Parliament, and Auditor General at Sh35 million.
The Controller of Budget has decried the ever increasing recurrent costs taxpayers continue to foot, raising concerns the expenses could crowd out development a great deal.
“An analysis of the submitted expenditure reports reveals that high recurrent expenditures and low development expenditure are rife in our budget implementation,” Nyakang'o said.
Last year, the national government spent Sh2.96 trillion of which 81 per cent was on recurrent activities, compared with development at Sh553 billion.
“This trend has been aggravated by the impact of the increase in the payments towards pensions and gratuities from the Consolidated Fund Services (CFS) account over the last eight years,” Nyakang'o said.
“The government must devise ways to effectively manage the rising costs,” she said.
Spending on foreign travel also shot to unprecedented levels during the period, with the President’s office taking up Sh46.1 million.
Officials at the Foreign Affairs ministry spent the highest at Sh670 million in the nascent days of the Kenya Kwanza administration.
MPs have also burned Sh322 million during the period, while the Judiciary has spent Sh20 million in the three months.
For domestic travel, the Parliamentary Service Commission was the highest spender at Sh1.6 billion, more than twice what it spent in the first six months last year.
The Auditor General's office has also travelled more locally at Sh315 million compared with Sh263 million it spent in a similar period last year.
The Attorney General’s office spent Sh57 million from last year’s Sh39 million, and IEBC which did Sh55 million more.
Looking at the budget globally, MDAs have burned Sh3 billion on domestic travel in the first 100 days of Kenya Kwanza rule.
Foreign travel has taken up Sh1.7 billion so far, Sh561 million into printing and advertising, Sh1.6 billion on rental of properties, Sh818 million on training, Sh366 million on maintenance of vehicles, and Sh267 million on maintenance of other assets.
Nyakang’o further decried the continual rise in pensions spending, saying there was a need for a framework to ensure long-term sustainability.
This was even as it emerged that the national government has settled only about Sh3.7 billion in pending bills since the new fiscal year began.
“Only Sh3.69 billion was paid to settle MDAs’ pending bills, while Sh1.87 million was found ineligible for payment,” the budget boss said.
“The Controller of Budget recommends that all MDAs and State Corporations prioritise settling the eligible pending bills to avoid further accumulation,” she added.
During the debate on the first supplementary budget estimates, MPs raised concerns about the spending spree in the national government.
This was amid revelations that the government only achieved Sh14 billion from the planned cuts of Sh300 billion as announced by President Ruto.
“The fiscal deficit has not decreased. It is rhetoric and the same old story. We are overspending as a nation and we are spending money which we don’t have,” nominated MP John Mbadi said.
In the supplementary budget, the government has allocated hundreds of millions of shillings to non-core government businesses.
Budget documents tabled in Parliament showed that the government has allocated Sh200 million for the IEBC hiring panel.
A further Sh650 million was allocated for parliamentary furniture, while Sh150 million was earmarked for Madaraka Day celebrations.
This is against the backdrop of the country's strained fiscal space, with debt repayments taking a chunk of the exchequer allocation.
The allocation towards servicing the public debt in the financial year 2022-23 amounted to Sh1.4 trillion, representing 88.6 per cent of the CFS budgetary allocation.
