State House flouts Ruto's austerity orders, seeks extravagant supplies

State House has advertised for the supply of cut flowers and flower arrangements in what is seen as defiance of President William Ruto’s order for austerity measures. 

This comes in the wake of budgetary crisis sparked by the withdrawal of the Finance Bill 2024, which left a Sh346 billion hole in the 2024/25 budget. 

Despite the move resulting in huge budgetary cuts across government that has seen allocations for several projects and programmes either slashed or removed altogether from the Supplementary Budget currently before the National Assembly, the house on the hill has largely retained its recurrent expenditure estimates save for renovations.

In an invitation to tender issued by the Executive Office of the President inviting contractors to submit bids before August 15, State House is also seeking the supply and fitting of luxury carpets.

Following the unprecedented protests led by Gen Zs, President Ruto last month directed that the confidential vote, which has for years been used freely by the presidency be removed and expenditure on travel, hospitality, purchase of motor vehicles and renovations expenses reduced.

Analysis of past budgets have shown that the government spends billions of shillings each year on flowers, tea, and other hospitality supplies, which critics say could be channeled into other essential services.

The National Government Budget Implementation Review report covering nine months of 2023-24 financial year, July 1, 2023 to March 31, 2024, which was released by the Controller of Budget Margaret Nyakang’o in June, for instance, shows that State House and the Office of the President has spent Sh1.1 billion in hospitality.

At the time, the president had already imposed austerity measures as the government sought to cut expenditure in light of failure by the Kenya Revenue Authority to meet ordinary revenue targets amid piling debt repayment obligations.

State House was the largest spender on hospitality at Sh771.68 million, the report showed.

Some ministries have previously spent up to 24 per cent of their recurrent budgets on hospitality. A previous report covering 2019-2020 financial year showed that government ministries, departments and agencies splashed Sh4.5 billion on hospitality up from Sh3.8 billion the previous year. 

President Ruto is currently under close scrutiny regarding use of public funds especially from Gen Z, who are angered by the high cost of living, lack of employment and poor public services.  He has in the past been accused of double speak in his push for austerity especially with regard to his numerous foreign trips.