Kenya’s Addis Ababa embassy secures highest facelift budget as Tanzania’s gets the least

Kenya’s embassy in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, has received the highest facelift budget boost among all missions, with Sh150 million set aside for upgrades, including infrastructure improvements and enhanced security measures.

According to the 2025/2026 development expenditure estimates currently under scrutiny by the National Assembly, this represents a 650 per cent increase from last year’s allocation of Sh20 million.

Meanwhile, Kenya’s embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, has received the least budget, with only Sh5.3 million allocated for renovation of staff houses, down from Sh20 million previously. The reduced funding has been attributed to the gradual relocation of Kenyan envoys to Dodoma, Tanzania’s administrative capital, leaving earlier renovation efforts largely stalled since 2020.

The proposed facelift budget for Kenya’s foreign missions totals nearly Sh2.35 billion, a move that signals a partial reinstatement of a scrapped allocation following the collapse of the Finance Bill 2024.

The plan, led by Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi, seeks Parliament’s approval to upgrade diplomatic offices, residences and infrastructure for envoys abroad, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs headquarters.

Budget cuts

However, not all missions are beneficiaries of the budget boost.

Kenya’s embassies in London and New York are among the hardest hit by the revised allocation. The budget for purchasing a new chancery for the High Commission in London has been cut by 38.89 per cent from Sh900 million to Sh550 million. Similarly, the budget for renovating government-owned properties in New York has been reduced to Sh550 million, down from Sh841.39 million.

The cuts follow a directive by President William Ruto to eliminate funding for the purchase, refurbishment and furnishing of envoys' residences and offices abroad. The move came in the wake of intense youth-led anti-tax protests that forced the government to drop key provisions in the Finance Bill 2024, resulting in a Sh344.3 billion budget deficit.

As part of the broader austerity drive, funding for furniture and vehicle purchases was slashed, except for security agencies and allocations for building renovations were halved.

Despite the reductions, the proposed Sh2.35 billion facelift budget represents a marginal 1.83 per cent decrease from the Sh2.39 billion that had initially been allocated before being scrapped.

The revised expenditure includes upgrades in facilitative infrastructure such as ICT and security systems. Reports from the Office of the Auditor-General have supported these allocations, citing the deteriorating state of Kenya’s foreign missions, with some facilities labelled “inhabitable.”

60 diplomatic missions

Kenya currently operates over 60 diplomatic missions across the world to advance its trade, political, and security interests. Among these, the embassy in Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo has received a 500 per cent increase in its renovation budget, jumping from Sh20 million to Sh120 million. This comes after the Kenyan embassy was vandalised and looted in late January during spontaneous riots in Kinshasa following the capture of Goma by M23 rebels, who are believed to be backed by Rwanda.

In addition to Addis Ababa and Kinshasa, several other Kenyan missions have seen notable increases in facelift funding.

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The budget for the embassy in Lusaka, Zambia, has been raised by 466.67 per cent to Sh170 million from Sh30 million, while Washington D.C. is set to receive Sh35 million, marking a 75 per cent increase. The allocation for Abuja, Nigeria, has doubled to Sh10 million, and Islamabad, Pakistan, will also see a 75 per cent rise to Sh35 million.

The embassy in The Hague, Netherlands, has been allocated Sh25 million, a 66.67 per cent increase, while Pretoria, South Africa, has received a 50 per cent boost to Sh15 million. Meanwhile, Mogadishu, Somalia, has seen its renovation budget rise by 20 per cent to Sh30 million.

Conversely, some missions have seen their budgets either trimmed or removed entirely. In addition to Dar es Salaam’s sharp cut, the proposed renovation of the chancery in Rome has been shelved following the elimination of a planned Sh20.5 million allocation. Meanwhile, the renovation budget for properties in Kampala remains unchanged at Sh10 million.

New allocations

The proposed budget has introduced new allocations for renovation and refurbishment of several Kenyan foreign missions, with Sh40 million earmarked for the embassy in Tokyo, Sh35 million for Paris, Sh30 million for Berlin, Sh15 million for Stockholm, Sh10 million for Harare, and Sh5 million for the embassy in Beijing.

The Treasury has also set aside Sh100 million for the purchase of a chancery to serve Kenya’s mission to the United Nations Habitat in Nairobi, an item not featured in the previous financial year’s estimates.

In past recommendations, the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) has advised the government to consider appointing Honorary Consuls and liaison officers in countries without a full diplomatic presence, to help cut operational costs.

“Honorary Consuls offer an efficient diplomatic channel of increasing a country’s diplomatic network, as they are cost-effective than fully-fledged missions because of the lower costs attached to maintain Honorary Consuls, as they serve for free and only require to be reimbursed expenses incurred in offering their services,” the PBO said in its November 2021 report.

This is even as the National Assembly’s Departmental Committee on Trade, Industrialisation and Cooperatives raised concerns over the effectiveness of commercial attachés stationed abroad.

“The committee noted that the offices of trade missions are not achieving value for money spent on sustaining them abroad. In addition, a huge share of the budgetary allocation is spent on allowances of the trade attachés,” the committee said in a report tabled last year.