Governors and authorized persons will have only two vehicles

Governors and Cabinet Secretaries will be given just two cars under the National Treasury’s new crackdown to reduce waste.

Deputy governors and general secretaries will be given a single vehicle, and it will be the same for district administrators and general managers.

Parastatal chiefs and chief executive officers of the constitutional commissions and independent officials will each be given a car. The same will apply to heads of state companies, although other senior civil servants will have to carpool.

“Senior staff officials will be facilitated from a pool of tools,” read the new rules proposed by Treasury boss John Mbadi.

This will also be the case for senior cadre district officers.

The Treasury Cabinet Secretary said the proposed rules aim to ensure the best use of government tools.

If the proposal is approved, the vehicles will be assigned mainly for security and operations.

“Commission members and parastatal board members, who are independent civil servants, are required to drive private vehicles and claim reimbursement,” the proposed policy states.

Various audits by the Auditor General’s Office and budget reviews by the Controller of the Budget have highlighted travel costs in government in the past.

Reports show that much of the money spent on domestic travel is attributed to police officers driving around in fleets of vehicles.

By June 2023, the government has spent about Sh15 billion on transportation costs for civil servants and civil servants.

The Auditor General in an earlier report had flagged the wanton waste of government vehicles allocated to various government departments.

He touched upon the violations of the law regarding their use and the instructions of the Treasury.

During the 2022 inspection, missing vehicles, vehicles without logbooks and other vehicles registered in the name of contractors in various ministries were detected.

Gathungu also reported cases where vehicles were diverted to other agencies in violation of the law.

Among those brought to the scene were the planning, education, health, infrastructure, public works and water departments.

At the planning department, Gathungu questioned why the management left 23 vehicles grounded for so long and they lost their salvage value.

There were cases where organizations failed to provide work tickets to help monitor the use of cars.

It was revealed that drivers in state institutions did not disclose fuel, oil and distance traveled in the relevant vehicle records.

Lost vehicles were also mentioned.

Toyota Fortuner GK B193V, which was purchased for Sh8.36 million for a project at the Ministry of Education, went missing.

Management announced that the vehicle was stolen in a car theft incident a few days after purchase.

The infrastructure department also lost a vehicle worth Sh6.5 million in July 2020, which is yet to be recovered.

A consultant from the Kimira Oluch irrigation project in Homa Bay also failed to hand over two vehicles with registration numbers KBS 681Z and KBS 682Z worth Sh7.2 million.