President Uhuru Kenyatta on Thursday, December 5 signed into law the Supplementary Appropriation Bill (No. 2) of 2019, that would allow for the allocation of a further Ksh73.4 billion towards government services and projects for the period ending June 30, 2020.
The additional allocation will require the government, which already had a deficit in the 2019/20 budget, to borrow more money, adding on to the high debt burden.
Gatundu South MP Moses Kuria had on November 26 led some MPs in vowing to shoot down the bill.
"We were told that we were the ones in Parliament and the ones approving the funds for projects and thus had the upper hand in the developments projects we funded. On this, we blocked it because it did not have the projects we expected," he protested.
The bill was passed by Parliament on December 4, after a series of showdowns between Treasury and the National Assembly Committee on Budget Allocations and was presented to the head of state for signing by Speaker Justin Muturi.
As much as the bill would facilitate the completion of pet projects by the president, the Kimani Ichung'wa led committee, however, highlighted concerns upon passing of the bill, as reported by Business Daily on November 20, 2019.
“It is clear that the revenue projections are still unrealistic and that the proceeds from state-owned enterprises (SOEs) of Ksh78 billion are not likely to finance the supplementary increases. Therefore, if the supplementary budget passes, this financing gap will have to be met from additional borrowing,” read a report from parliament.
The committee estimated that approval of the supplementary budget would add a financing gap of Ksh146.3 billion which would, in turn, stretch Kenya’s borrowing as June’s budget has a deficit of Ksh640 billion.
The parliamentary budget committee further stated that the constant revisions undermined the credibility of the budget and called for a tool to evaluate priorities under the Big 4 Agenda.
Present during the brief signing ceremony were National Assembly Majority Leader Aden Duale, acting Treasury CS Ukur Yatani, Attorney General Paul Kihara, National Assembly Clerk Michael Sialai and State House Deputy Chief of Staff Njee Muturi.
