Treasury CS Ukuru Yattani on Tuesday, November 12, asked Parliament for an increment on the national budget from Ksh2.8 trillion that was read in June by Henry Rotich to Ksh 3.13 trillion.
Unpaid Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) bills, Universal Health Care plans and construction of Kenya’s first double-decker road were listed as the main reasons that forced Treasury to review and increase the budget for the year 2019/2020.
According to reports by Daily Nation, the ministry requested an extra Ksh85.5 billion for national government development projects and an additional Ksh6.5 billion for the counties.
Treasury had ordered all ministries to slash budgets for travel, advertising and training, which the state termed as wasteful spending.
“The recurrent expenditure decreased by 0.5 per cent while development expenditure increased by 12.2 per cent. This is within the 10 per cent threshold specified in the constitution,” the Treasury CS claimed in a statement to Parliament.
In the same document, CS Yattani revealed that Kenya experienced tax shortfalls of Ksh60.2 billion in the three months leading up to September and internal revenues from items such as fines, payments for passports and marriage fees had also fallen short by Ksh24.4 billion.
This comes barely two weeks after the ministry had a nasty misunderstanding with the Judiciary after it cut the laters budget by over 50 per cent.
The move raised uproar from all quarters, forcing the government to backtrack on the decision.
