Kirinyaga Governor Anne Waiguru has dismissed a report by Standard Media Group alleging her county spent Ksh235 million on domestic travel.
In a statement issued on Monday, June 29, 2026, the accused the newspaper of presenting misleading figures from the Controller of Budget’s (CoB) latest implementation report.
Waiguru argued that attributing the combined expenditure to her was inaccurate and called on the newspaper to outline the figures accurately.
“A clarification to Standard Kenya Your ‘Spending Spree’ headline in today’s newspaper is misleading,” she wrote.
According to the Kirinyaga Governor, the CoB’s May 2026 report shows that the County Executive spent Ksh44.87 million on domestic travel during the review period, while the remaining Ksh190.50 million was incurred by the County Assembly.
“For the record, the Controller of Budget’s May 2026 report (Page 289) on Kirinyaga was clear that Ksh44.87 million in domestic travel expenditure was incurred by the County Executive, not Ksh235.37 million as presented in your headline. Please present the figures factually,” she added.
The clarification followed a Standard Media front-page story highlighting expenditure on domestic travel by county governments, citing the CoB report.
The publication reported Kirinyaga’s domestic travel expenditure as part of a wider story warning that counties are spending heavily on travel, allowances and salaries at the expense of Kenyans needs including roads, health, water and other services.
