How State House’s Ballooning Budget Exposes the 10-Point Agenda Implementation Lie

Nairobi, March 11 – The Linda Mwananchi faction of ODM has given the Ten-Point Agenda a one out of ten in its shadow report released today. Led by Senator Edwin Sifuna, the critique spans all ten points – from ending wastage and improving public service efficiency, to auditing the 2022 elections, managing national debt, protecting civil liberties, addressing abductions, promoting development, enhancing state-owned enterprises, ensuring fiscal discipline, fostering national reconciliation, and upholding the rule of law.

The report argues that while the government paints a rosy picture, rising executive spending, stalled projects, and largely symbolic reforms reveal a widening gap between promises and reality. These concerns trace back to the frustrations that first boiled over in June 2024, when thousands of young Kenyans took to the streets in largely leaderless protests that caught the political establishment off guard. The demonstrations, largely organized via social media, were driven by a generation convinced the political class no longer listened.

The immediate trigger was the Finance Bill 2024. But as the protests spread from Nairobi to other towns, it became clear the anger ran deeper than a single piece of legislation. Many young people believed they were being asked to shoulder the burden of a struggling economy while the political elite continued to enjoy the privileges of power.

Images of lavish government spending circulated widely online. Reports of police brutality and abductions deepened public mistrust. The gap between the government that seemed to speak the language of the “hustler” while living the lifestyle of a king

Under pressure, President William Ruto attempted to calm the situation. In several public addresses, he acknowledged the frustrations and promised that the government had heard the message from the streets.

Months later, that message was translated into a political agreement. On March 7, 2025, the ruling United Democratic Alliance and the opposition Orange Democratic Movement, led by Raila Odinga, signed a Memorandum of Understanding built around a Ten-Point Agenda meant to address the country’s mounting political and economic tensions.

Among the ten commitments, Agenda Item Nine stood out for its direct appeal to the grievances that had sent young protesters into the streets: “Stopping wastage of public resources and promoting government efficiency.”

The austerity promise

The commitment to reduce the cost of government did not appear out of thin air. It emerged directly from the political crisis triggered by the 2024 Gen Z protests.

As public anger mounted over new taxes and rising living costs, President Ruto announced a series of austerity measures meant to signal that the government had heard the message from the streets.

Among the most prominent pledges tied to Agenda Item Nine were the abolition of budget allocations for the offices of the First Lady, the spouse of the Deputy President and the spouse of the Prime Cabinet Secretary. The president also ordered a freeze on the purchase of government vehicles, suspended non-essential travel and promised to cut administrative expenses across ministries and state agencies.

The measures were presented as proof that the government was willing to tighten its own belt before asking citizens to make further sacrifices. In effect, the austerity promises made in the heat of the Gen Z protests were transformed into an official reform agenda.

One year later, the Linda Mwananchi faction of ODM issued its verdict today. In a blistering counter-report to the government’s official implementation assessment launched on Tuesday, the group led by Nairobi Senator Edwin Sifuna gave the administration a score of one out of ten — a rating they described as “generous,” noting that some members argued the government deserved negative marks.

The Ten-Point Agenda, they concluded, was not merely underperforming. “It is a fraud,” Siaya Governor James Orengo said during the launch of the Linda Mwananchi shadow report.

Their case rests on a growing body of financial data suggesting that while the government has publicly spoken about reducing expenditure, spending at the very top of the executive has continued to rise.

One of the most striking figures comes from State House itself. Data drawn from National Treasury reports indicates that State House recorded recurrent expenditure of more than KSh10 billion in the first seven months of the 2025/26 financial year. By February 2026, the presidency had already exceeded its approved annual allocation of about KSh7.6 billion.

In practical terms, the presidency had exhausted its yearly budget months before the financial year ended. The spending surge was particularly visible in January, when expenditure reportedly reached KSh1.3 billion in a single month – roughly KSh42 million every day.

Treasury officials acknowledge that such overruns complicate fiscal planning because they force the government to reallocate resources from other programmes.

The Office of the Deputy President showed a similar pattern. Professor Kithure Kindiki’s office recorded expenditure of about KSh3.33 billion against a budget of roughly KSh2.97 billion, an overspend of more than KSh360 million. Controller of Budget Margaret Nyakang’o has also flagged the Office of the Deputy President’s spouse, Dr. Joyce Njagi, for spending KSh 44.52 million in the first half of 2025/26 despite no allocation from the National Assembly.

At a time when many government departments were struggling to meet development targets due to financial constraints, the two offices at the top of the executive structure appeared to be moving in the opposite direction.

For critics of the administration’s say the language of cost-cutting has not been matched by the reality of spending. According to the official Ten-Point Agenda implementation report presented by a committee chaired by Dr. Agnes Zani, the budgets for the spouses’ offices were indeed abolished.

However, civil society groups and the ODM Linda Mwananchi faction argue that although the budget lines disappeared from official documents, the offices themselves never stopped operating. Staff remain in place and public activities continue. The difference, they argue, is that the costs may now be absorbed into other government allocations, making them harder to track.

If accurate, this would mean the austerity measures announced publicly did not eliminate the expenses – they merely changed how the spending appears on paper. According to the Linda Mwananchi counter-report, the austerity claim collapses under scrutiny. “State House had already consumed its entire budgetary allocation for the financial year just seven months into the year,” the report notes.

“The President and his staff live luxuriously on the sweat of Kenyans,” it adds, citing frequent donations of up to KSh20 million at public harambees with little explanation of the source of such funds.

Another controversy concerns presidential advisers. In December 2025, Kenya’s High Court ruled that the appointment of more than twenty presidential advisers was unconstitutional, holding that the creation of those offices and the use of public funds to sustain them violated the legal framework governing the structure of government.

Ordinarily, such a ruling would require the positions to be dissolved. Yet sources within State House indicate that several of these individuals continue to report to work. They continue to draw salaries. They continue to advise the president, operating in a legal grey zone that amounts to open contempt for a court order.

For opponents of the administration, the issue is not simply legal but financial. If advisers continue operating despite the ruling, public resources may still be sustaining offices that technically no longer exist in law.

That also represent not only a constitutional problem but also a direct contradiction of the government’s promise to eliminate waste – and potentially a violation of the rule-of-law commitments captured under Agenda Item Ten of the same MoU.

Oversight warnings

Oversight institutions have also raised concerns about how public resources are being managed. Reports from the Office of the Auditor-General have repeatedly flagged stalled government projects and weak financial controls across ministries and agencies. One report covering the 2024/25 financial year identified dozens of stalled projects worth tens of billions of shillings, with billions already spent on initiatives that remain incomplete or unusable.

The Controller of Budget has similarly highlighted instances where withdrawals from public funds did not follow proper procedures. Such findings are not unusual in Kenya’s public finance system. Linda Mwananchi proponents argue they sit uneasily alongside the government’s claims that it has embraced strict fiscal discipline.

The controversy surrounding executive spending has been intensified by the broader context of the national budget. While recurrent expenditure at the top of government has risen, development spending in several sectors has struggled to reach planned levels.

Infrastructure programmes have recorded lower-than-expected execution rates. Housing projects have moved slowly. In some cases, ministries have spent only a fraction of the funds initially allocated for development.

Economists warn that this imbalance can have long-term consequences. When development spending lags while administrative expenditure grows, the country risks weakening the investments needed to drive economic growth.

It also fuels public frustration – especially when citizens are being asked to accept new taxes or austerity measures elsewhere in the economy. The government itself has acknowledged fiscal pressures through the introduction of a supplementary budget designed to adjust spending plans.

Supplementary estimates increased overall government expenditure beyond the levels initially approved by Parliament. Much of the increase went toward recurrent spending – the day-to-day costs of running government – while development allocations rose more modestly.

In practice, the government prioritised maintaining administrative operations even as several development projects slowed.

For critics, the supplementary budget effectively confirmed what earlier financial reports had already suggested: cutting the cost of government has proven far more difficult than promised.

Competing narratives

The government’s official report on the Ten-Point Agenda presents a glowing picture, citing reforms across all ten points – from state-owned enterprise management and public service efficiency to targeted development projects and national reconciliation. President Ruto, however, extended the Dr. Zani committee’s mandate by 60 days to complete ongoing work, particularly compensating protest victims since 2017, with KSh 2 billion allocated. He also proposed a law to protect protesters, tasking the Kenya Human Rights Commission to lead it while ensuring full constitutional adherence.

The administration points to progress in sensitive areas, including the auditing of the 2022 elections and national debt, as well as steps toward addressing abductions and other rights violations. Officials argue these measures demonstrate commitment to both accountability and the protection of citizens’ constitutional rights.

Linda Mwanachi counter-report criticised the report as superficial, noting some sections contain only a single paragraph with little supporting evidence. Treasury figures and oversight institutions indicate that while promises of reform exist, executive-level spending continues to rise, development projects lag, and structural problems – such as incomplete audits, ballooning national debt, and persistent abductions – remain unaddressed.

These gaps Sifuna-led group said revealed the Ten-Point Agenda is more now a political statement than a substantive reform program. Speaking after the release of the Linda Mwananchi report, Senator Sifuna said the MoU between the ruling coalition and ODM had run its course and would not be extended. The political agreement that birthed the Ten-Point Agenda, he said, has effectively reached its conclusion.