Opacity in budget making: How MPs fuel Executive's abuse of Article 223

Controller of Budget Margaret Nyakang'o. She claims she was pressured by Yatani to approve up to Sh15 billion in requests days before last year's General Election. [Elvis Ogina, Standard]

It was baked in the 2010 constitutional dispensation as a failsafe mechanism for checking the excesses of an executive bent on abusing its powers and allocating itself more exchequer funds at the expense of other arms of government.

In the years before Article 223, the National Treasury would submit to Parliament a statement of excess alongside the supplementary budget indicating additional money spent outside the budget during the financial year.