Kenya’s proposed Ksh4 trillion budget for the 2024/2025 fiscal year could experience a marginal change as parliament seeks to amend it.
The Chairperson of the Budget Committee in the National Assembly, Ndindi Nyoro while speaking during an interview with TV47 attributed the change to an amendment of the appropriations bill.
The Kiharu legislator noted that the current budget which stands at Ksh4.006 trillion could slightly change by about Ksh14 billion upon the adjustment of the bill.
According to the lawmaker, the parliament's budget-making process will conclude a week after the Treasury CS has read it on the floor of the house, a duration that will see the parliament pass the appropriations bill and proceed to submit the final budget to President William Ruto for an ascent.
“The budget that we will be expecting tomorrow will be a budget of Ksh4.006 trillion but that could change marginally because in the appropriations bill,” Nyoro noted.
"The amount of money going to recurrent expenditure is around Ksh1.6 trillion for the national government and that of development will be around Ksh450 billion,” he added.
Ndindi Nyoro further revealed that the country was struggling with huge debts and that a huge chunk of the budget had been allocated for debt servicing.
The lawmaker noted that about Ksh1.08 trillion had been allocated for loan repayments, thus prompting the national treasury to initiate other revenue-raising measures to support the budget deficit.
"What this means, out of the collections done by the national treasury, the obligations to pay interest rates and the principal, out of each Ksh100 the National Treasury will be receiving, only Ksh39 will be taken by the government," Nyoro stated.
Nyoro's sentiments come a day after the Treasury Principal Secretary explained the reason behind the adjustment of tax measures in the Finance bill which is set to be presented to parliament alongside the budget.
According to PS Kiptoo who appeared before the Finance Committee in the National Assembly, the Finance bill sought to raise Ksh346 billion.
He stated that the money raised through the punitive taxes would be used to partially fund the 2024/2025 budget which currently awaits parliament approval.
