NAIROBI, Kenya, May 27 – The Parliamentary Budget Committee on Wednesday exonerated Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta over claims that the Supplementary Budget figures he re-submitted in Parliament had discrepancies.
The Committee’s Vice Chairman Dr Julius Kones said they combed through the estimates and found out that the figures were correct and are consistent with the Appropriations Bill passed by the House.
“We had the opportunity to review and analyse the estimates, to counter-check with Supplementary Appropriations Bill and can support with the tables that we have computed,” he said.
They were responding to claims by Mars Group that the budget had more anomalies amounting to Sh10.6 billion even after calling for the rectification of errors they initially identified.
While the team thanked the lobby group for pointing out the discrepancies in the budget in the first instance, they said Mars Group erred in its calculations.
Committee Member David Ngugi said in some instances, they added the figures instead of making subtractions and that’s how they ended up with a Sh10.6 billion amount.
“With the help of our Budget office, we found out that it’s the Mars Group which was wrong in its computation. We have asked them to get in touch with our office (to) be taken through item by item and reconcile their figures. There is no need of looking for an animal where there’s none,” he said.
They however said they would still await the report of the ongoing independent forensic audit which would hopefully clear the computer system at Treasury.
At a briefing, the team which was represented by four out of the 11 members expressed their confidence in Mr Kenyatta as a Finance Minister. Despite the absence of the other members, they said all members were bound by the team’s position.
The Minister has recently come under fire over the errors in the budget with some people accusing him of incompetence and not fit to run the Finance docket.
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