House team seeks President Uhuru Kenyatta's help as military, spy agency block queries

Aberdare Region MPs led by Francis Waweru, Samuel Gichigi and John Kihage. Gichigi (Kipipiri) has said MPs had a duty to check the budgets, including the confidential elements. (PHOTO:BONIFACE OKENDO/ STANDARD)

A parliamentary committee yesterday complained publicly that the military and the National Intelligence Service (NIS) had refused to give details of their budgets.

The two departments have been allocated Sh124 billion in the next financial year – Sh98.7 billion for the Ministry of Defence and Sh25.3 billion for the spy agency.

The National Assembly's Defence and Foreign Relations Committee now wants a meeting with President Uhuru Kenyatta to expose the top officials at the two State departments blocking the scrutiny of the Budget.

At a meeting in Nairobi's County Hall with the Budget and Appropriations Committee, Barre Shill, who is the vice chair of the committee, said MPs were not "rubber-stamps" and they had a duty to check even confidential budgets.

Mr Shill appealed to the chairman of the Budget and Appropriations Committee, Mutava Musyimi (Mbeere South), to "tell the President" that the committee "was suffering".

"We have been asking for a meeting with the President, but State House will not allow us to sit down with the President, yet we are handling a lot of sensitive things, and we really wanted to tell and show him the other side of the coin," said Shill.

The military and the spy agency, Shill said, usually tell the House committee that their budgets were "confidential" and the lawmakers had to approve the block figures.

He also revealed that when the military officials appeared before the committee to explain the operational failures that led to the El Adde attack, and even the numbers of the soldiers killed, their questions were ignored.

The Kenya Defence Forces camp in El Adde, Somalia, was attacked and dozens of soldiers killed in the January 15 attack by Al Shabaab militants. There has been speculation that over 100 soldiers died, and new reports from the CNN, the American-owned cable TV channel, has put the number at 141.

Mr Mutava listened to the complaints and promised to pass the message to President Kenyatta.

Samuel Gichigi (Kipipiri) said MPs had a duty to check the budgets, including the confidential elements.

"If this is what is happening, Parliament is not carrying out its oversight role," said Mr Gichigi.

Mutava agreed that confidential elements should be scrutinised in closed-door meetings.