Fresh details have emerged over how former President Uhuru Kenyatta has been struggling to pay his staff after the Kenya Kwanza Alliance government denied him the funding allocated to his office by the constitution.
Uhuru’s spokesperson, Kanze Dena, said the retired president is now paying his staff from his pocket and that even the vehicles that he is lawfully entitled to have not yet been provided.
The size of Uhuru’s office, his entourage while traveling, and the number of staff have been points of contention between the former president and the current administration.
Whereas the Ruto administration has offered Uhuru a KSh.250 million one-storey office at the Nyari Complex in Nairobi, which the third president, the late Mwai Kibaki, previously occupied, Uhuru has insisted that he use his former home adjacent to the State House.
Kanze said Uhuru had been denied an opportunity to have an office of his choice, just like his predecessors, the late Daniel Arap Moi and Kibaki, had and was now being forced to use an office previously occupied by Kibaki.
Kanze said Uhuru is entitled to KSh.20 million for office rent per year, but currently, he has been forced to furnish an office within his private compound in Nairobi owing to his position as East Africa Community facilitator for peace initiative in Congo DRC and Tigray region in Ethiopia.
The former president’s spokesperson wondered why Uhuru would be denied an opportunity to have an office of his choice, yet even former Prime Minister Raila Odinga and former Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka have been allowed to operate offices of their choice.
