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Kenya Airways, NMS get Covid-19 relief but universities suffer

Wednesday, February 10th, 2021 00:00 | By
Treasury Cabinet secretary Ukur Yattani. Photo/File

The National Treasury is seeking Sh83.3 billion to support its programmes in its first Supplementary Budget this year.

The budget, according to Cabinet Secretary Ukur Yatani is seeking to address post-Covid-19 related interventions, provisions for security-related expenditure, pending bills, salary shortfall and Phase IV of job evaluation.

Treasury has thus made several adjustments to ministries and programmes with State House allocated an additional Sh568.6 million to support operations, maintenance and donor commitment while the office of the Deputy President getting Sh90.8 million more.

The Ministry of Transport has been allocated Sh36.1 billion for the Nairobi commuter rail, Nairobi- Kisumu, Nairobi-Longonot-Malaba lines and rehabilitation of railway locomotives.

Another Sh1.9 billion has been injected into Kenya Airways to keep it afloat during this pandemic period.

The airline just like others in the globe have been greatly affected by travel bans and lockdowns in many parts of the country.

The education sector has also been allocated more funding to support their budgets.

They include allocations to the University education which has been adjusted downwards by Sh4 billion while primary education has received an increment of Sh778.6 million.

Secondary education has on the other hand seen its allocation reduced by Sh589.9 million.

Water and Sewerage Infrastructure Development has been allocated upwards Sh6.2 billion to cater for among them the Nairobi Expressway which will be added Sh2.1 billion, the Northern collector a further Sh2.7 billion.

Also, the Mavoko Water project has been allocated Sh428 million and Sh 386.7 million for VAT refund for Nairobi water distribution network and Sh 4 billion for Karimenu Dam project.

The Nairobi Metropolitan Services has been allocated Sh 5.1 billion more for payment of pending bills, health services improvement plans, construction equipping and staffing of 19 level II and III health centres.

The money will also cater for the construction, equipping and staffing Mama Lucy Kibaki and Mathare- Korogocho hospital, improvement of infrastructure in informal settlement.

The budget also makes changes in development partners funded projects and scaling down of expenditures to achieve the targeted overall fiscal deficit level.

Yatani in the estimates tabled before the National Assembly yesterday says the implementation of the 2020/21 Budget continues to face various challenges which include the effects of Covid-19 pandemic which slowed down the economic performance and underperformance of projected revenues in the first half of the financial year.

 He added that the collection was below the target by Sh107.6 billion, with ordinary revenue collection sanding at Sh726.4 billion against a target of Sh802 .2 billion an underperformance of Sh75.8 billion.

The total cumulative expenditure and net lending inclusive of transfer to county governments for the period ending December 31, 2020 amounting to Sh1.16 billion against a target of Sh1.25 billion.

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