Days after revelations that President William Ruto’s State House had blown an astonishing Sh10.4 billion in the first seven months of the current fiscal year, it has now emerged that the State House budget for the current year has been ballooned to a staggering Sh17 billion.
This amount will not only break local and regional records, but has raised questions on the legality and morality of this allocation at a time when President Ruto’s administration has been enforcing some of the most punitive taxation measures in Kenya’s history.
According to a report that was published in the Daily Nation on Friday, February, 06, 2026, this allocation is more than what is allocated by developed countries such as the United States and Germany for equivalent offices.
“Since the approval of the financial year 2025/26 budget, the National Treasury has granted additional funding requests and disbursements to ministries, departments and agencies in accordance with the constitution,” Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi said in documents he presented to parliament for the regularization of the mega State House budget expenses.
It has also emerged that the government used a clause in the constitution to sneak in the extra funding. “In this regard, please find attached a schedule of the additional expenditure approvals granted under Article 223 of the constitution for your necessary action,” CS Mbadi said.
This article allows for additional funding within the government in an instance where the money that had initially been allocated is insufficient to cover the full fiscal year, and, or where there is need to an emergency but no funds had been set aside.
According to the disclosures by the National Treasury, the house on the hill had initially received a full year allocation of Sh7.7 billion. This allocation was meant to cover the period that will end in June 2026.
However, by the end of January 2026, Sh10.4 billion had been blown away. Shockingly, it has been revealed that in the month of January, Ruto’s residence had spent Sh1.3 billion. This amounted to spending Sh42.6 million every day for the 31 days of January.
This reckless spending of public resources was the continuation of a trend that was seen in the first three months of the current fiscal year.
Ruto’s State House spends Sh43mn daily; blows Sh10.4bn in just 7 months
During that period, State House blew Sh4.32 billion against the target allocation of Sh1.92 billion that State House had been given to spend in the first quarter of the current 2025/26 financial year. This meant that the budget had been overshot by 125 percent in three months.
If State House goes on to blow the full amount of Sh17 billion, it will have spent approximately Sh1.4 billion per month or Sh47 million per day for 365 days.
