This archive report was first published on 12 June 2020.
Kenya's Budget: A Focus on Wealth Creation is Long Overdue ¶
June 12, 2020
Kenya's budget has remained stagnant for the past 30 years, with a disproportionate share of spending allocated to sectors that only consume instead of generating new wealth.
The capital budget is woefully underfunded, with the recurrent budget taking precedence. This means that the country is prioritizing existing assets and wealth over creating new ones.
According to the 2020 budget presented by Treasury Secretary Ukur Yatani, a significant portion of the budget is allocated to feeding bureaucracy, servicing debt, and paying wages and salaries of civil servants, MPs, and governors.
One of the most egregious examples of wasteful expenditure is the allocation of billions of shillings to purchase expensive vehicles for MPs and senators, which are then used to travel to their constituencies on bad roads.
It is illogical to justify the purchase of these vehicles by citing the need to travel on bad roads, when the same MPs have the power to allocate funds to fix these roads.
Kenya's public sector is growing rapidly, but this growth is only happening at the top, with Cabinet secretaries and principal secretaries retaining their high salaries and benefits.
What the country needs is a bold move to rationalize the public sector around core public functions and make every expenditure consistent with the resources available.
Only then can Kenya's budget focus on creating new wealth instead of perpetuating a culture of consumption.
