Kenya FY 2017/18 Budget-making process begins

The National Treasury begun the budget-making process for the next fiscal year and the Medium Term this week through scheduled sector hearings where citizen participation and other stakeholders are taking part.

Treasury launched the budget-making process for the 2017/18 financial year on Monday with the release of sector working group report  from the Agriculture Rural and Urban Development (ARUD) that showed that the government will need to inject more capital to fund formulation and review of policies, strategies, regulations and standards that will also guide effective management of land and oceans.

The sector said they would require Ksh.85.192 billion in 2017/18 financial year with Ksh.33.750 billion (39.6%) being Recurrent and Ksh. 51.442 billion (60.4%) for Development expenditure. This is against an allocation of Kshs 46.598 billion of which Kshs.16.117 billion (34.6%) is for Recurrent and Kshs. 30.481 billion (65.4%) is for Development expenditure. Further, the sector will require Kshs.92.879 billion for 2018/19 FY and Kshs.100.22 billion for 2019/20 FY.

On Tuesday, the Health Sector, Energy, Infrastructure and ICT Sector and Education Sector presented their estimates.

The education sector  said that the outstanding deficit in terms of teacher deployment has affected the quality of learning and performance of the pupils, Inadequate number of teachers for adult education has also hindered the achievement of targeted levels literacy thus, affecting the implementation of their programmes.

The sector says for the 2017/2018 is KES 392,241Million comprising of KES 32,061 M development expenditure and KES 360,180 recurrent expenditure while the gross resource ceilings for the sector were set at KES 326,516M recurrent expenditures and KES. 23,345 M capital expenditures in the Budget Review and Outlook Paper (BROP).

This translated to a gross increment of KES 9,937 B(KES 10,767B increase and KES 0.83B decrease in recurrent and development respectively) from 2016/17 Financial Year.

They also propose a new model of recruitment of teachers that addresses staffing levels equitably be adopted; Mainstream science and technology to enhance R&D; Strengthening ICT integration and e-system at all levels of education and training , Mobilizing resources from donors and development partners to finance establishment of more institutions to cater for the increased demand for education and training.

On the other hand, the infrastructure and ICT sector for the financial year 2017/2018 project KShs. 550,555 million of which KShs. 471,543 million is for development while KShs.79,012 million is for recurrent expenditure.

Read: How the Kenyan Budget has been Growing for the Last 20 Years: The Language of Numbers

In the 2016/17 National Budget, the Energy, Infrastructure and ICT sector’s share of the budget increased by 4 percentage points, growing from 26.9 percent to 30.4 percent, which happened to be the largest increase for any sector. The Education sector, on the other hand which was named as the second largest expenditure sector was allocated one fifth of the total MDAs budget.

National Treasury and the County Treasuries are in the process of producing their respective Budget Review and Outlook Papers by this date. The process is expected to continue up to the end of the month.

A total of Ksh.17 billion has been budgeted for the Civil Servants Pension Contributory Scheme in the current Financial Year 2016/17. This was reiterated by National Treasury Kenya Cabinet Secretary, Henry Rotich during the 2017/18 – 2019/20 Medium Term Expenditure Framework Budget Public Sector Hearings that is happening at KICC.

Members of the public and the media have been invited by the National Treasury to attend the function so as to give their views on the proceedings.

Mr. Rotich added that the Kenyan economy has remained resilient registering strong economic growth compared to the average of Sub-Saharan Africa.

Earlier on, the CS had reported that they had revised their budget calendar so as to enable the current Parliament approve the FY 2017/18 Budget Estimates, in view of the forthcoming 2017 General Elections scheduled for August 2017. The objective is to ensure that the budget for the 2017/18 is appropriated in good time for smooth operation of the budget before and after the 2017 general election.

The exercise ended on Wednesday with presentations from the Environmental Protection, Water and Natural Resources Sector, Public Administration and International Relations Sector and Governance, Justice, Law and Order Sector.