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Tycoon Buffet gives Kenya Sh3.8bn after Trump aid cuts
Billionaire financier and Berkshire Hathaway Chief Executive Warren Buffett greets shareholders during the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders meeting in Omaha, Nebraska, US on May 3, 2008.
Warren Buffett, the world’s most famous investor, has eased the pains at Kenya’s cash-starved public health department after offering a grant of Sh3.8 billion for the national budget amid cuts in foreign donations by US President Donald Trump.
The Treasury has disclosed the billions in the budget estimates for the year starting July and will be channelled to the State Department of Medical Services.
The spending plan tabled in the National Assembly indicates that the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation will, for the first time, directly finance the Kenyan government.
Mr Buffett, the world’s sixth richest person, has donated billions of dollars to the foundation, named after his first wife and run by his children.
The billionaire recently announced that he would be stepping down as the CEO of sprawling conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway, the financial juggernaut he built up over the past six decades.
Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, originally known simply as Buffett Foundation, supports reproductive health initiatives, including access to contraception and safe abortion services.
The Sh3.8 billion grant comes amid the unprecedented decision by the Trump administration to slash some of the big-ticket contracts, rattling thousands of US-funded health projects in Kenya.
Hours after occupying the White House on January 20, President Trump ordered a sweeping review of almost all US foreign aid and tasked billionaire Elon Musk, who has termed the United States Agency for International Development (USAid) a “criminal” organisation, with scaling down the agency.
The retreat by the American government has left a big gap, with rich philanthropists and charities being challenged to plug.
The aid cuts have affected health programmes across Africa, including shipments of critical medical supplies, including HIV drugs.
The majority of the USAid programmes, which provided health and humanitarian assistance to vulnerable nations, have since been terminated.
Eight countries - six of them in Africa, including Nigeria, Kenya and Lesotho - could soon run out of HIV drugs following the US decision to pause foreign aid, the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned.
The Kenyan government revealed that it required Sh24.9 billion to replace funding from the United States government following a freeze on foreign aid by the Trump administration.
The Ministry of Health earlier disclosed that it was seeking an immediate Sh2 billion disbursement to address these gaps.
Additionally, Sh2.5 billion was needed to secure the Global Alliance Vaccine Initiative (GAVI) vaccines in light of disruptions caused by the US aid freeze.
The Sh3.8 billion grant from the Susan Thompson Buffet Foundation is equivalent to 18.1 percent of the Sh20.93 billion projects’ budget for the State Department for Medical Services for the year starting July.
Mr Buffett, a serial investor who has built his estate through investing, particularly by building and growing Berkshire Hathaway, a holding company which he bought in the 1960s, has often been at odds with Mr Trump.
Recently, Buffett, 94, criticised the US president’s economic policy, saying tariffs “can be an act of war.”
“Trade should not be a weapon,” Mr Buffett said during a four-hour meeting of Berkshire Hathaway’s shareholders.
Mr Buffett found what he thought was a permanent solution in fellow billionaires Bill and Melinda Gates and in 2006, he pledged his support, in life and death, to the couple’s global foundation focused on reducing poverty and boosting health care.
To date, Buffett has given about $43 billion to the Gates Foundation, but the letter he wrote to shareholders last year spelled the beginning of the end of philanthropy’s most influential partnership.
Buffett, 94, now plans to donate 99.5 percent of his remaining wealth, now valued at more than $161 billion (Sh20.8 trillion) by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, to the charitable trust overseen by his daughter and two sons when he dies.
The current budget shows that GAVI has committed to offer the State Department for Medical Services a Sh2.6 billion grant.
Foreign organisations that have committed grants to the department for the new fiscal year include USAid, which has promised Sh231,560,000.
But most of the USAid’s grants are given through non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
Last year alone, USAid allocated Sh19.2 billion to its Kenya programmes, though this represented a significant decrease from the previous year’s Sh32.4 billion.
The crisis extends beyond healthcare to environmental conservation, with Kenyan conservation organisations warning of severe impacts on biodiversity protection efforts.
But it is in the healthcare sector that the pullout by the US government has left a dark mark on the African continent, forcing philanthropists and private organisations to step in.
These private entities are providing grants and resources to support NGOs, local organisations, and initiatives addressing critical needs in areas like health, education, and economic development on the African continent following reduced US funding.
