Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi has announced that the United States President Donald Trump’s administration will continue financing some critical programmes in Kenya despite an executive order that halted foreign aid funding.
Mbadi, while appearing before the Senate plenary on Wednesday afternoon, revealed that he held a conversation with a high-ranking US official on Monday. According to the CS, the talks were centred around the implications of Trump’s executive order on Kenya.
The finance minister informed the legislators that more than 100 programmes that were initially funded by the US through its development partners had since been reduced to 15 programmes.
“Mr Speaker, I wanted to point out that a day before yesterday, I had a meeting with the Charity Affairs representative of the United States in Kenya, we held discussions at length and it was clear that the US has been giving us aid directly through implementing partners,” Mbadi noted.
He went on, “The programmes before the executive order, which have been running in this country, were about 100, but after the executive order, the programs may reduce to only 15.”
However, despite the funding cuts, the Treasury CS noted that Trump’s administration would continue funding critical sectors in the country, including life-saving interventions.
According to Mbadi, the American Government will also continue providing financial services to health emergencies, for instance, during an outbreak of contagious diseases such as Ebola.
Similarly, the US will continue channeling financial aid to emergency food assistance to the drought-affected communities, particularly in the northern part of the country.
Mbadi also informed the legislators about America’s intention to continue funding the Kenya-led Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission in Haiti.
“These are the areas that are going to be saved from the discussions we had with them and I requested him to give me a write-up of the impact of this executive order,” Mbadi stated.
“However, he stated that life-saving interventions will not be affected, the emergence of diseases like Ebola will not be affected in terms of fund cuts, emergency food assistance will also be preserved and finally, the order mission in Haiti will still be supported,” he added.
The announcement came weeks after Trump signed an executive order suspending foreign aid for 90 days to ensure it aligned with his "America First" policy.
Addressing Americans during his inauguration ceremony on January 20, Trump said his administration would no longer provide funds to countries that are not fully aligned with the US government's foreign policy.
