Treasury CS Ukur Yattani is expected to deliver a budget estimates speech at Parliament building on Thursday 11th June 2020 in what is expected to be a different kind of budget reading. Different if you factor in the Covid-19 and its effects, first, there will be few leaders in attendance and second, the estimates are set to provide more information on how Kenya is going to face up to a post Covid-19 world.
Only four people are expected to attend the event from the National Treasury in Parliament buildings including the Treasury CS, with only 25% of MPs expected to attend the ceremony in accordance with Ministry of Health guidelines. Moreover the total budget is expected to be lower than previous years, because the government has had to review it to align with the current challenges posed by the Coronavirus pandemic.
CS Yattani said what the government did first was to work in cushioning the most vulnerable in the society.
He said the government has been greatly affected by the pandemic and it has been forced to forgo taxes that were crucial to the budget making process.
The government has forgone Kshs 172 billion after reducing VAT income tax, the funds that would obviously have been used in the budget.
He further dispelled fears that Kenya’s debt situation is alarming insisting that the payments made year on year were sufficient making the debt obligation manageable.
In the proposals, the total expenditure is estimated at Kshs 2.9 trillion with recurrent expenditure amounting to Kshs 1.8 trillion.