Wanjigi calls for freeze of Treasury's Sh150bn 'shadow account'

Safina Party Presidential aspirant Jimi Wanjigu addressing the media at Kwacha House in Westlands on April 30, 2026. [AFP]

Businessman Jimi Wanjigi has demanded a freeze on a Sh150.7 billion sovereign bond account, which he says the National Treasury is hiding outside the Consolidated Fund.

Speaking in Nairobi on Thursday, April 30, Wanjigi dismissed the Treasury's explanation that errors in the Kenya Gazette resulted from a clerical mistake, arguing that the scale of discrepancies pointed to deeper failures in public finance management.

"The March 2026 Budget Outturn is not simply a document. It is a crime scene," said Wanjigi.

He claimed 84 out of 88 recurrent exchequer line items published in Gazette Notice No. 5726 contained errors before the Treasury withdrew and replaced the notice with Gazette Notice No. 5803.

Wanjigi argued that the revised figures exposed unexplained changes involving hundreds of billions of shillings across ministries and agencies, including the Teachers Service Commission and the Ministry of Defence.

"These are not typographical mistakes. They point to either a systemic failure within the Integrated Financial Management Information System or a desperate attempt to reconcile funds already disbursed without proper documentation," observed Wanjigi.

He also questioned the disappearance of Vote R1015, the Department of Performance and Delivery, from the revised gazette notice after it initially appeared with allocated spending.

At the centre of his claims was a Sovereign Bond Proceeds Account holding Sh150.7 billion, which he said operated outside constitutional safeguards governing public funds.

According to Wanjigi, Article 206 of the Constitution requires all borrowed funds to pass through the Consolidated Fund before expenditure.

"By keeping this money off the official books in a separate account, the Treasury is bypassing the Controller of Budget, blinding the Auditor General and evading parliamentary scrutiny," explained Wanjigi.

He questioned why the government continued to cite liquidity pressures while billions of shillings allegedly sat in the separate account.

Wanjigi demanded that Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi disclose the bank holding the funds, publish certified bank statements for the account and account for any interest earned from the money.

He also called on the Office of the Controller of Budget and the Office of the Auditor General to freeze the account pending compliance with the law.

Treasury had earlier admitted errors in the gazette notice through a letter dated April 21, signed by FCPA Bernard Ndungu, directing the Government Printer to withdraw the original publication and republish corrected figures.

The corrected Gazette Notice No. 5803, signed by Mbadi and dated April 9, contained revised statements of actual revenues and exchequer issues for the nine months ending March 31, 2026.

Wanjigi's office released comparison tables showing differences running into tens and hundreds of billions of shillings between the original and revised notices across multiple ministries and departments.