Chief Justice David Maraga, on Monday, November 4, cried to President Uhuru Kenyatta revealing that he was struggling with footing various bills including that of wifi.
While addressing members of the press in front of the Supreme Court in Nairobi, Maraga disclosed that the budget cuts imposed on the Judiciary were hurting service delivery countrywide.
“Unless the budget cuts are reversed, we do not have money for fuel, we will not have mobile courts, we will not have the court of appeal circuits, we will not be able to pay for wi-fi for the e-filing and e-payments and plans to automate courts will halt," he stated.
In the spirited rant, Maraga argued that the Judiciary did not demand a lot of money from the state explaining that they would comfortably survive on a budget ranging between Ksh5 billion and Ksh6 billion every year.
"The judiciary does not need so much money to build courts across the country. If the judiciary is given a constant budget of about Ksh5 billion every year for 10 years, we will build courts everywhere in the country.
"I have now instructed the chief registrar of the Judiciary, starting from next year's budget, not to take our budget estimates to the Treasury. The Constitution demands that our budget estimates be taken to National Assembly," he continued.
"From the national assembly, I get various MPs asking me to put up courts in various places across the country and rightfully so. So when we go to the National Assembly, we will tell them to look, we need so much money to build courts in such and such areas. We cant build all the courts in one year," Maraga added.
The visibly angry CJ also voiced his frustrations in accessing the funds allocated to the Judiciary once approved by the National Assembly.
"As the Judiciary budget is dwindling, the workload is growing. The backlog will continue to pile up. We also have challenges in Treasury releases of what we are allocated. The IFMIS system was opened for a very short time," he lamented.
Previously, the CJ had claimed that due to this impasse, over 15,000 cases were suspended indefinitely on Monday, October 28.
The Treasury slashed the Judiciary's budget by over Ksh3 billion in September citing revenue shortage and need to raise funds for President Uhuru Kenyatta's big four agenda.
The judiciary had requested for Ksh 31.2 billion but was allocated Ksh 14.5 billion by the national assembly which treasury slashed to Ksh11.5 billion.
Below is a video of CJ Maraga's rant:
