Counties spend Ksh.17B on travel as pending bills hit Ksh.172B - Controller of Budget

Controller of Budget (CoB) Margaret Nyakang'o has raised a red flag over excessive travel expenditure by counties, which amounted to over Ksh.17 billion in the last financial year.

The Budget Implementation Review Report for the financial year ended June this year has lifted the lid on wastage and plunder by counties, as the Controller of Budget continues to point a finger at excessive travel by county governments and county assemblies.

The report released Friday shows that the 47 devolved units spent a whopping Ksh.17 billion on foreign and local travel, with the county sheriffs taking the lion’s share of the budget.

As has been the trend, owing to its size and population, among other factors, Nairobi County continued to lead in the expenditure, splashing Ksh.850 million on travel, followed by Narok County, which spent Ksh.758 million, Nakuru (Ksh.655 million), Samburu (Ksh.614 million) and Tana River (Ksh.579 million), making the list of top spenders on travel.

Most of the preferred destinations for the county officials, according to the report, include Dubai, Singapore, New York, Dodoma and London.

Some of the events attended by the leaders include training on transformative leadership, ethical leadership and emotional intelligence and benchmarking on the best leadership practices, among others.

In her report, Nyakang’o flagged some of the reasons for the travel, pointing to wastage, saying some of the events would have been done locally.

The national government, which takes up over eight times more of the budget which is given to the counties, spent Ksh.25 billion in the same period.

Similarly, county governments also reported outstanding trade payables, also known as pending bills, of Ksh.172 billion as of 30th June 2026, as suppliers continue to beg to be paid for their services.

The highest reported balances were in Nairobi City at Ksh.86.90 billion, making up over half of the burden; Kilifi at Ksh.8.15 billion; Kiambu at Ksh.5.80 billion; and Machakos at Ksh.4.49 billion.

During the same period, Mombasa County overtook Nairobi County in own-source revenue collections, topping the list with Ksh.21.1 billion, followed by Nairobi at Ksh.15.5 billion, Kiambu (Ksh.6 billion), Nakuru (Ksh.5.3 billion) and Narok (Ksh.4.4 billion).