The Kenya Tourism Board (KTB) splashed Sh298,900 to airlift nine of its staff to Mombasa for a warm-up race ahead of the Standard Chartered Marathon last month, highlighting wastage in government agencies.
Official disclosures showed that KTB tapped city-based travel firm Kaylan Tours & Travel Limited to supply the tickets, two weeks before the Standard Chartered Marathon, which was held at Uhuru Gardens in Nairobi.
June Chepkemei, KTB chief executive officer, did not respond to Business Daily queries on the decision to fly its staff to a warm-up race 484 kilometres away amid concerns about wastage of public funds.
The warm-up race in Mombasa was one of three such races that organisers of the Standard Chartered Marathon set up ahead of the October 29th race. The other two were held in Kisumu and Kakamega.
KTB’s choice to fly the nine employees to Mombasa is likely to spark public backlash, as the corporation could have opted for the more cost-effective standard gauge railway (SGR) instead of air travel.
A one-way air ticket to Mombasa averages Sh17,000, compared to Sh1,500 for an economy seat on the SGR train and Sh4,500 per person in the train’s first class coach.
State agencies and corporates take part in the Standard Chartered Marathon as a fun and fitness exercise for staff, which begs the question of why KTB chose to burn hundreds of thousands of shillings flying staff to Mombasa for a warm-up race.
Kenya is currently grappling with a shrinking fiscal space in the face of mounting debt payments against missed revenue collection targets.
The mix of high debt service obligations and below-target revenue collection has left the government struggling to pay pensions and salaries on time, while squeezing cash for development projects that are key to creating jobs and improving service delivery.
KTB’s move flies in the face of President William Ruto’s directives to curb the wastage of public funds.
“We are going to make sure that we deal with the challenge of corruption, wasteful spending, and unnecessary use of public resources,” the President said mid this year.
The Controller of Budget, Margaret Nyakang’o, has also been calling out government entities for wanton wastage of public funds, describing it as a major hurdle to prudent use of the paltry resources.
