The Cabinet Secretary for National Treasury has announced that
the national budget statement will be delivered on 11th June, 2020.
What is in this budget?
Parliamentary Budget Office has conducted an Analysis of Kenya National draft Budget
Financial Year 2020/2021
In this video I provide highlights of their findings:
- Budget is an important tool for planning and resource allocation and
It is even more important during this time of Covid-19
Budget can be used to respond to Covid-19;
- An ideal response is to introduce an economic reform package that addresses
Immediate health needs and proposes a roadmap for the next phase of recovery.
PBO concludes the FY 2020/2021 budget fails in this aspect;
- The budget should have worked to revamp the existing health facilities
- Recruit more health workers
- Acquire medical equipment
- There is no budget to boost research in KEMRI or mass recruitment of healthcare workers;
- The ceilings provided in the 2020/2021 budget estimates, do not adhere to those adopted in the Budget Policy Statement;
- The Citizen’s budget has not been published on the National Treasury website as required by law;
- The tone of 2020/2021 budget remains “business as usual” that means there is nothing substantial to reflect the changing times.
- Throughout the entire Programme Based Budget, the only expenditure earmarked towards Covid-19 response is a Ksh. 2.6 billion allocation towards mass testing of Covid-19 under the Kenya Covid-19 Emergency Response Project in the MOH;
- The Revenue targets set by the National Treasury in the budget estimates continues to be unrealistic.
- Covid-19 is expected to have a negative impact on tax receipts in both FY 2019/2020 and FY 2020/2021; due to reduced demand for non-essential goods and services, limited international trade and travel and shutdown in accommodation and restaurant sector are some of the factors that are expected to contribute to reduced revenue collection;
