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The figure does not include the 2013/2014 financial year, meaning the cost is likely to rise.
The commission had requested more than this amount. For instance in their 2011 requisition alone, they wanted Sh1.2 billion but were awarded Sh190 million by the Exchequer.
The report by the TJRC was released late because on two occasions the team applied for an extension totalling about 15 months. It first asked Parliament for an additional six months in March 2011 and then for another nine months the following year.
Mr Oduor Ong’wen, a public policy analyst, says the cost of this extension was enormous.
“Extending any serious project like this by 15 months has dire cost implications, we are talking of hundreds of millions of shillings here,” he says.
But Mr Martin Napisa, the acting co-ordinator of the National Taxpayers Association, says there will not be a loss to the economy if the report is implemented.
“The value of implementing the recommendations would be greater than what was spent in coming up with the report. But we stand to lose big if it is not acted upon,” he said.
Commission chairman Bethuel Kiplagat referred Sunday Nation to the body’s CEO Tom Aziz Chavangi for any discussion of the cost implications of the extension.
Mr Chavangi said a full disclosure of the expenditure would come in August when the curtain falls on the commission.
“We are winding up in August, and that is when we can give the final figure on our expenditures. We have nothing to hide, and everything will be in the public domain” he said.
Past injustices
Mr Kiplagat guided a process whose final result did not spare him. It recommended that he be investigated in relation to past injustices.
After civil society groups argued that Mr Kiplagat was a top foreign ministry official during the administration of former president Daniel arap Moi when the army massacred people in northern Kenya in 1984, calls for his resignation began to mount.
Critics also took issue with the fact that he was also in government when his then boss, Foreign Minister Robert Ouko, was killed.
Part of the reason the commission did not finish its mandate within the stipulated time frame was the internal wrangles among the commissioners arising from these allegations.
Leading the clamour for his resignation were the commissioners who demanded that a tribunal be formed to look into these claims.
Commissioner Ronald Slye supported the push. Ms Betty Murungi, then commission vice-chairperson, had to resign when Mr Kiplagat showed signs of staying put.
It was a troubled body with a very foul start. In fact, public hearings were delayed for a year until 2010 over the wrangles which even caught the attention of the international community when Nobel Laureate Desmond Tutu of South Africa, who chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in the post-apartheid era, joined in the fray.
There are concerns that the implementation of the TJRC report could be marred by disputes as well.
Source: Daily Nation
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