Treasury Cabinet Secretary (CS) Prof. Njuguna Ndung’u has lifted the lid on the government’s economic crisis, saying it was becoming extremely difficult to pay civil servants.
According to CS Ndung’u, the government is struggling to stay afloat, and that the El Nino rains had made the situation even worst.
Ndung’u, a former Governor of the Central Bank of Kenya – CBK, who was appearing before the national assembly’s finance committee on December 6, they are grappling with a liquidity issue.
Additionally, he insisted that they are not in a capacity to meet demands by Members of Parliament, who are pushing for the disbursement of Ksh9 billion National Government -Constituency Development Fund (NG-CDF).
At the time the Treasury CS told the committee that the government has not collected enough revenue due to the ravaging El Nino rains hence the struggle.
“For one year Kenya has gone through a server drought and now El Nino in both cases we have allocated budget to save lives in both cases, at the same time because of those extreme session we are not getting adequate tax revenue,” said Treasury CS.
CS Njuguna Ndung’u Blames El Nino Rains
According to the CS, the ongoing heavy rains nationwide have hit their fortunes hard and could further lead to the civil servants delayed salaries.
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“In a sense we are struggling just to be in the same position, we are even having trouble with salary,” said CS Ndung’u.
At the same time, the Treasury boss stated that they are currently paying civil servant salaries in arrears.
Similarly, he gave details of a phone conversation with Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja over the outstanding salary arrears owed to civil servants.
Further adding that the Governor expressed his fears of impeachment by Nairobi members of county assembly over the salary arrears as well as lack of bursary allocation.
In addition, he asked for more time to settle the matter at hand while assuring the committee that the situation would stabilize.
“We are going to ride over this, so in the meantime we are begging for a little bit of time. We are working 24 hours to ensure we resolve this,” said CS Ndungu.
MPs Demand Treasury Boss to Hold Other Projects
On the other hand, while responding to his request, the members of parliament advised him to put on hold some ambitious projects like fertilizer subsidy and address pressing matters first.
“You have the capacity to hold things that can hold even the fertilizer subsidy that we gave a budget of about Ksh8 billion because the next season for fertilizer is around March or May,” said Baringo North MP Joseph Makilap.
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At the same time, the MPs insisted that the National Treasury prioritizes the disbursement of funds to the National Government Constituencies Development Fund (NG-CDF) to ensure the timely allocation of bursaries before schools open in January 2024.
