Africa-Press – Kenya. The Senate Committee on Finance and Budget, on Tuesday, March 11, hit out at the National Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi for skipping an invitation to consider the 2025/26 Budget Policy Statement.
Speaking when they held the meeting earlier in the day, the committee, chaired by Mandera Senator Ali Roba, expressed concerns that the former lawmaker had not carried forward the mentality of the National Assembly into the running of the Ministry.
“We have had a good working relationship with the Ministry. We have managed to execute them without any hitches from the Ministry,” Senator Roba stated.
“Unfortunately, we have not received a response from the National Treasury, which was supposed to be the last entity we engage with.”
Kakamega Senator Boni Khalwale expressed similar concerns, stating that he hoped the CS was not becoming “a victim of the feel-good effect of having landed into government.”
“As a committee, we are completely blind to the broad-based government dynamics when discharging our mandate,” Khalwale added.
Ultimately, the Senators called on Mbadi to respect the committee’s mandate of delivering service to Kenyans and urged him to honour such summons to facilitate this.
His next summons was set for Tuesday, March 18, where he is expected to explain to the committee why he failed to honour the invite.
The Budget Policy Statement (BPS) is a government policy document that sets out the broad strategic priorities and policy goals that guide the national and county governments in the preparation of budgets.
Mbadi’s summons was set to be among the last stages of consideration of the document after all necessary standing committees in the Senate submitted their review of the policy back to the committee.
The BPS was submitted to Parliament on February 13 by the National Treasury as stipulated in Section 25(2) of the Public Finance Management Act, Cap 412A. Thereafter, all Senate standing committees held sessions to consider their stipulated budgets, an exercise they had since completed.
Within 14 days of the policy statement being tabled in Parliament, the Senators are expected to table and debate a report on the BPS containing recommendations to approve it with or without amendments.
During the March 11 session, the committee also engaged with the Controller of Budget, Margaret Nyakang’o, who urged the committee to ensure her office is adequately funded to help it discharge its oversight role.
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