Stop Making Unrealistic Budgets, Government Agencies told

Government agencies have been cautioned against creating their own ridiculous budgets that are beyond maintenance and that end up putting too much strain on the general economy of the country.

This comes after it emerged that some government agencies are creating strain on the economy through coming up with budgets that are unrealistic. This came up during a cabinet meeting that was chaired by President Uhuru Kenyatta. During the meeting, it was arrived at that there was need to manage the budget at the moment through the scrutinizing of both the National budgets as well as those for the Counties.

According to the statement that was released thereafter, “Government ministries, departments and agencies should desist from bursting their ceilings through additional resource requests considering the light funding scope for the budget.”

The government has been going through some financial crisis during the better part of the year 2015 and this has been coupled with the Kenya Revenue Authority failing to hit its half-year target for more than 28 billion the first time and 47 billion the second time.

Part of the statement said that “The government has put forth a fiscal framework that will ensure sustainable debt and improved expenditure management. The government plans to gradually lower the fiscal deficit – by closing the gap between revenue and expenditure – to below four percent of GDP over the medium term while at the same time providing sufficient room to finance productive expenditure so as to sustain equitable growth.”

These has surfaced as the treasury plans to come up with this year’s budget with the lion’s share of the expenditure this year expected to go to education as well infrastructure.

The treasury had presented before the cabinet the proposals for the budget to be approved. This proposal is known as Budget Policy Statement and it is a document that sets out the broad strategic priorities that guide the two levels of government in preparing their budgets for the next financial year 2016/2017

Article by Juma  Fred.