Following the approval of the FY 2023/24 Supplementary Estimates No. 1, the National Assembly required the National Treasury to provide a detailed report on the cash surplus funds held by state-owned corporations in their bank accounts. This report, due within sixty days of the resolution, is contained in the budget summary. According to the report, state corporations under the Ministry of Information, Communications and The Digital Economy cumulatively had the third largest bank balance as of 31st December 2023. The Ministry, led by Eliud Owalo, had a total bank balance of KES 18,610,946,546.
However, the bulk of this bank balance at, KES 14,456,489,579 (77.68%), is held by the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA). This means CA has one of the biggest bank balances among state corporations. Its bank balance is almost equivalent to that of the entire Ministry of Health (KES 14,478,934,308). Out of the 223 state corporations listed in the budget summary, CA ranks 4th in terms of bank balance size.
The ICT regulator earns most of its revenue from Frequency utilization fees and Annual operating license fees, which account for 78.6 per cent and 14.7 per cent. In the audited report for Financial Year 2022 – 2023, it reported the total revenue earned was KES 11.39 billion.
Under the ICT ministry, the Information & Communication Technology Authority (ICTA) had the second highest bank balance at KES 2,966,829,025. The figures from there fall off as shown in the image below.
Kenya State Corporations with Highest Bank Balance
In total, state corporations had a bank balance of KES 201,055,786,128. At the end of 2023, the ministry with the healthiest bank balance was the Ministry of Roads and Transport that is under Kipchumba Murkomen. The ministry had a total bank balance of KES 65,013,107,897 with Kenya National Highways Authority (KeNHA) at KES 10,548,714,570, Kenya Airports Authority (KAA) at KES 13,272,500,866, and Kenya Urban Roads Authority (KURA) leading at KES 27,931,028,277. KURA had the largest bank balance among all state corporation across all ministries.
Corporations under the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum had the second highest bank balance. Kenya Electricity Generating Company PLC (KenGen), the leading electric power generating company in Kenya, closed the year with KES 25,309,970,534 in its accounts. Kenya Power, the company responsible for distribution and retail of electricity in the country, had KES 18,696,006,573 as its bank balance. The two were the second and third respectively in terms of bank balances across the 223 corporations listed.
