NAIROBI, Kenya, Jun 11 – Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta is Thursday afternoon expected to present a Sh866 billion Budget which is Sh158 billion more than the last financial year.
In Mr Kenyatta’s estimates tabled in Parliament on Wednesday, the recurrent expenditure will take Sh606.7 billion while development projects have been allocated Sh258.9 billion.
This shows that the bulk of the money will be spent to foot salaries and other government expenditure which is Sh48 billion higher than what the government spent in the just ending financial year.
The government has already indicated that it will be borrowing Sh109 billion from the domestic market to match a financial deficit. Last year the budget deficit was Sh130 billion.
The ministries of Medical Services, Special Programmes, Provincial Administration, Local Government and State House are among institutions that offset the increase.
Mr Kenyatta explained that the increase is attributed to major increases in the Consolidated Fund and the ministries of Education, Finance, Planning, Public Health and Higher Education were among the ministries that got a major increase.
According to the estimates the Consolidated Fund Services budget increased to Sh20.5 billion, Ministry of Education will be allocated Sh10.7 billion while Sh6.8 billion will go to the Ministry of Finance.
The Planning Ministry which will be in charge of the National Census – which is due in August – has had its estimates upped by Sh3.5 billion from Sh2.7 billion.
Others in the gainers category include Ministry of Higher Education which gets Sh2.28 billion and Public Health and Sanitation got an extra Sh2.4 billion.
Among the losers was Ministry of Special Programmes which had hoped for enhanced funding to facilitate its second phase of Internally Displaced Persons Resettlement Programme.
The Ministry allocation is estimated to go down to Sh9.1 billion shillings from Sh12.1 billion they got in the last financial year.
State House and the Ministry of Internal Security which have been traditional beneficiaries of major budgetary allocation, had their estimates cut down by Sh266 million and Sh128 million respectively. State House will get Sh1.1 billion while the Internal Security Ministry will be allocated Sh40.7 billion.
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