NAIROBI, Kenya, Mar 5- The Budget and Appropriations Committee has accused the government of setting unrealistic economic projections which they say will affect budget implementation.
The committee was referring to the Budget and Policy statement 2020/2021 report, which projects a 6.2 percent growth in the next financial year and a 7.0 percent growth over the medium term.
This is against World Bank estimates, which expects the economy to grow by 5.9 percent in the medium term, and 6 percent in the full year, underpinned by private consumption, a pick-up in industrial activity and strong performance in the services sector.
The report argues that growth will be supported by a stable microeconomic environment and strategic interventions under the Big 4 agenda including their enablers.
Enablers include growth in tourism, sustained business and consumer confidence, the resilience of exports as well as benefits of regional economic integration.
But Parliamentarians led by Kikuyu MP Kimani Ichung’wah say the growth will be impossible due to challenges in budget implementation, dragged by unresolved pending bills and failure to scale up implementation of big 4 projects.
“The investment program is facing several but related monumental problems namely the need to scale up the implementation of critical big four agenda programs, the need to resolve pending bills and the need to raise approximately Sh1 trillion to complete the large stock of stalled projects,” the MPs said.
The MPs also raised an alarm over the unequal distribution of economic growth, saying it is leading to poverty and joblessness among a huge section of the Kenyan population.
In the last five years, Kenya’s economic growth has stalled at an average level, which the committee says is unlikely to change.
