Stop wastage on retreats and benchmarking trips

 Auditor-General Nancy Gathungu. [File, Standard]

Kenya is facing a brutal cost-of-living crisis, strained public services, ballooning debt and an education system where hundreds of thousands of Grade One learners are unable to report to school because their parents cannot raise basic school fees.

Yet, in the middle of this hardship, national and county governments continue to haemorrhage billions of shillings on so-called “retreats” and “benchmarking trips” that deliver little to no value to the taxpayer. Over the last decade, government audit reports and parliamentary briefings have repeatedly flagged excessive spending on travel, accommodation, conferencing and per diems.

Conservative estimates from budget statements and Auditor-General reports indicate that the national government alone spends between Sh8 billion and Sh15 billion annually on domestic and foreign travel, workshops, retreats and benchmarking visits.

County governments collectively spend an estimated Sh6 billion to Sh10 billion annually on similar activities, often duplicating what ministries and departments at the national level are already doing.

This is not investment; it is indulgence. We have seen the headlines. County executives flying dozens of officials to coastal resorts for “strategic planning retreats” that could easily be done in county headquarters.

Delegations of governors, MCAs and senior officers travelling to Europe, Asia or Dubai to “benchmark” services that have no relevance to local realities — only to return with glossy PowerPoint slides and no measurable improvements. Ministries holding back-to-back retreats in luxury hotels to “align priorities” that were supposedly aligned the year before.

One infamous case involved a county assembly spending tens of millions of shillings on repeated retreats within a single financial year, while health facilities lacked basic medicines. In another, senior officials travelled abroad to benchmark waste management, yet garbage continued piling up in towns months later. These trips had consequences only for hotel owners and airlines — not for wananchi.

The hypocrisy is staggering. Politicians are quick to lecture citizens on austerity, belt-tightening and patriotism. Parents are told to “be patient” when schools demand fees they cannot afford. Universities cut programmes.

Hospitals ask patients to buy gloves and medicine. Yet the same leaders see no contradiction in approving millions for allowances, five-star accommodation and air tickets under the convenient excuse of “capacity building”.

Contrast this with how developed economies operate. In UK and US, collaborative work and team coordination are overwhelmingly done through structured meetings, committees and digital platforms. Since the Covid-19 pandemic, virtual meetings have become the default, not the exception.

Government departments routinely use video conferencing, shared digital workspaces and time-bound meetings with clear outputs. Physical retreats are rare, tightly justified, modestly priced and heavily scrutinised.

Kenya does not lack expertise or ideas. What it lacks is discipline and political will. The obsession with retreats and benchmarking trips is less about learning and more about allowances. Per diems have become a parallel salary system, a cash cow milked by politicians and senior officials at both national and county levels.

The tragedy is the money being wasted could transform lives. Redirect just Sh10 billion — a fraction of annual retreat and travel spending — and thousands of classrooms could be equipped, school fees subsidised for vulnerable families, and teachers recruited. Health centres could be stocked with essential drugs. Youth employment programmes could be expanded.

Government must act now. There should be an immediate moratorium on non-essential retreats and foreign benchmarking trips. All travel and retreat budgets should be published transparently, with clear objectives, costs and post-activity impact reports. Virtual meetings must be the default.

Leadership is about sacrifice, not comfort. Continuing to waste billions on meaningless retreats while children are locked out of school is not just bad governance; it is a moral failure.

-The writer is Secretary General, Wiper Patriotic Front in charge of Diaspora Affairs