Taxpayers will have to fork out millions of shillings to facilitate Deputy President William Ruto's tour of the United States, Britain and Qatar.
Although the trip was cleared by the State, Foreign Affairs Principal Secretary, Ambassador Macharia Kamau, clarified that the tour is not on official government business.
An account by the Nation on the tour indicated that the DP and his entourage will be spending the taxpayer's money to a tune of Ksh107 million.
Further, senior officials accompanying the Deputy President will also be entitled to an allowance and some will pocket as much as Ksh82,398 per day.
Other officials accompanying the DP will be qualified for a daily allowance of about Ksh59,977, which totals to Ksh6 million. The US trip alone will cost the taxpayers Ksh31.18 million.
The tour of the United States, the United Kingdom and Qatar will cost a total of Ksh107 million with air tickets costing Ksh9.7 million for the one-way flight from Nairobi to Washington DC if the delegation uses business class tickets that cost about Ksh313,323 each.
They will spend Ksh8.28 million on accommodation. Notably, the DP and his delegation will be in the UK between March 5 and 8 and will likely spend Ksh30 million on air tickets from Washington to London.
During the UK tour, the delegation will spend Ksh4.3 million on accommodation. The senior officials will get an average of Ksh96,510 allowance while the others will be entitled to a Ksh65,782 daily allowance. This will cost the taxpayers Ksh10 million.
The delegation will then head to Qatar where air tickets will cost the taxpayers Ksh6.7 million and spend an average of Ksh4.4 million on accommodation.
The DP is expected to hold discussions with high ranking officials in America including the US House Foreign Affairs Sub-Committee on Africa, Global Health and Human Rights Representative, Karen Bass.
The discussion will take place under the Carnegie Africa programme and is expected to revolve around politics as well as governance across Africa.
"We are honoured to host the Deputy President of the Republic of Kenya, William Ruto, for a discussion on the future of governance and economic development in Kenya, East Africa, and the African continent," read the statement by Carnegie Africa programme.
Last year, DP Ruto’s budget allocation was slashed in estimates contained in the draft Budget Policy Statement (BPS) 2021.
The document showed that the office of DP Ruto was allocated Ksh1,402,500,000, which is a Ksh35,000,000 drop from the previous year’s Ksh1,437,800,000
President Uhuru Kenyatta’s office allocation was also trimmed by Ksh1,701,500,000 from Ksh36.5 billion to Ksh34.8 billion.
