It has emerged that the Interior Ministry under Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiangi spent up to Sh3.71 billion on entertainment in the last financial year ending in June.
According to Acting Controller of Budget Stephen Masha, the money which is 35 times the amount spent in the previous year was spent in receptions and parties.
Masha says that the ministry and the presidency are to blame for the 52 percent increase of monies spent by the state on hospitality, with the amount standing at Sh9.8 billion.
The offices of the president and the deputy president in the other hand spend Sh2 billion, Sh600, 000 million more than the amount spent by the two offices the previous year.
Members of the National Assembly also spent Sh278.1 million on similar expenditures from the Sh105 million used in the last financial year.
Ironically, the revelation was made amid calls by the National Treasury for state offices to tame their spendings to avoid wastage of funds.
Speaking last week, acting Treasury CS Ukur Yattani announced plans to review such budgets, saying that plans are in place to cut spending beginning next year.
“The cuts will be brutal and sustained … because the success of this government will depend on our dignity as a country to be self-sufficient,” he said.