Counties are spending a hefty amount on travel, with the collective figure reaching hundreds of millions, according to the latest County Governments Budget Implementation Review Report.
According to the report, county officials racked up billions in bills on travel, with Nairobi, Machakos and Kitui among the top spenders.
Nairobi was predictably also among the top spenders, with an expenditure of Ksh630.3 million on domestic travel alone. Ksh271.3 million was spent from the County Assembly, while Ksh359.1 was spent from the Executive.
Machakos County also emerged as a hefty spender on travel, spending Ksh532 million on domestic travel and another Ksh99 million on foreign trips. Some of the countries visited during the named period include Brazil, Dubai, Albania and China
Kitui County emerged as the highest spender on travel, with the county's exchequer release of Ksh 709.95 million seeing Ksh 536.9 million spent on local travel and Ksh72 million on foreign engagements, including trips to Turkey, Ethiopia, and Uganda.
In Mombasa, Ksh112 million was used in foreign travel expenses, with officials touring countries like Turkey, Spain, South Korea, Japan and the United States.
Kakamega, West Pokot, Kisumu, Nandi, Laikipia, and Nyandarua also featured heavily in the travel spending tier, with combined travel budgets exceeding Ksh1 billion across the board.
Notably, in some cases, travel expenses by County Assemblies alone surpassed the development budgets for key sectors such as water and agriculture.
Despite the ballooning travel budgets, the report also revealed that many counties are still grappling with stalled projects and unpaid suppliers and wage bills, which limit development spending.
During the same fiscal year, counties collectively spent Ksh346.98 billion of their total expenditure on recurrent costs such as salaries and operational expenses. This accounted for 74 per cent of total expenditure.
If the report is anything to go by, most counties continued to prioritise salaries and operational functions over development expenditure.
Nairobi City County registered the highest recurrent expenditure at Ksh29.43 billion, a figure which included Ksh18.3 billion spent on employee compensation and Ksh11.13 billion on operations and maintenance.
