UDA secretary general Cleophas Malala has explained why Sh1.5 billion was requested two days after the August elections by Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua.
Malala claimed that the previous government had grasped all the money leaving the current deputy president’s office empty.
He spoke during an interview on Citizen TV.
“Sh1.5 billion was requested two days after the elections because the previous tenure had taken away all the budget elements from the deputy president’s office,” he said.
“By the time Gachagua was being sworn in as the deputy president there was zero money in that office. That is why they took back the budget which was there before Gachagua’s swearing-in.”
This comes after former Treasury CS Ukur Yatani on Wednesday, revealed that immediately after the August 9 elections, he was prevailed upon to disburse Sh1.59 billion to Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua’s office.
In a statement, Yatani said the request was made in line with Article 223 of the Constitution which empowers the Treasury CS to release funds under special circumstances without parliamentary approval.
“It included Sh300 million for cars and Sh300 million for hospitality, a request that I did not grant in full but considered an amount of Sh500 million due to the financial constraints we had at the time,” Yatani said.
“This information like all others is in the public domain and I have nothing to hide because of the nature of operations at National Treasury.”
Yatani explained that under Article 223 of the Constitution, any expenditure not appropriated by Parliament but deemed necessary for the running of government can be incurred and approved by Parliament at a later date within two months.
He said this was the same constitutional path that Controller of Budget Margaret Nyakang’o used to approve the Sh15 billion she told the National Assembly Public Petitions committee on Tuesday that he pressured her to give the nod.
-The-Star
