Treasury seeks to increase Raila’s travel allowances

By James Anyanzwa

The National Treasury is seeking Parliament’s approval to increase the former Prime Minister’s allowances for foreign and domestic travels by Sh34 million.

In addition, Treasury has proposed to increase Raila Odinga’s allocations for fuel and lubricants by Sh9.6 million.

According to the Supplementary Budget tabled in Parliament last week, the Treasury chopped off personal allowances allocated for the Office by Sh2.64 million and reduced funds reserved as basic salaries for permanent employees by Sh490,020.

These are part of expenditure reprioritisation programme, which seeks to free resources to finance the operations of the Government until the conclusion of the 2012/2013 fiscal year on June 30.

According to the 2012/2013 supplementary budget, Treasury cut personal allowances paid as part of salary in the office of the Prime Minister to Sh107.23 million from Sh109.87 million and reduced basic salaries for permanent employees to Sh106.57 million from Sh107.06 million.

These revelations come even as it emerged that Treasury has asked the National Assembly to approve the allocation of Sh700 million for the purchase of a building to house an office for retired President Mwai Kibaki.

MPs are understood to have discovered the allocation as they questioned the failure by Treasury to allocate the Sh5.4 billion Constituency Development Fund (CDF) money for the remaining part of the 2012/2013 financial year.