Written by Geoffrey Kerosi | Editor-in-Chief| info@kerosi.com| 6:50 AM|
Kenya’s General elections is around the corner and many sitting and aspiring politicians are busy laying strategies on how to get get landslide victory. The date has been set by the Constitution of Kenya as August 8, 2017. This important democratic event will have an effect on Kenya’s budgeting process. At least the dates for approval will change.
The speaker of the National Assembly foresees that by June the current members of parliament will be busy wooing their electorates for votes. Therefore, it will be impossible to have a requisite quorum to approve the budget. In addition to that, parliament will have adjourned in pursuant of the Elections Act which requires that all political parties should complete their nominations two months before the election date.
Estimates to be Tabled in January Not the Usual End of April
Therefore, the National Treasury CS Mr. Henry Rotich proposed some changes to the budget calendar. The process will be fast-tracked. The budget estimates will be tabled on January and approved by April 2017. This is aiming at approving the budget before the political heat rises!
Kenya to Seek East Africa Community Consent
In the past, budget Approval has always been done simultaneously on a single date across all the EAC countries. This changes will require permission from the other EAC members.
Budget Calendar Released
On 13th July, 2016 Kenya’s National Treasury released the budget calendar. It was copied to all Cabinet Secretaries and Accounting Officers. The dateline for releasing the circular is end of August. The release of this important document now marks the start of FY 2017/2018 budget and make projections for 2018/19 to 2019/2020. This circular requires all the spending units to submit their proposals to treasury on what they will be spending money on plus the justifications.
We will cover more on the contents of the budget calendar releases by National Treasury on our next article.
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