Kenya’s National Treasury Wednesday said it will promote an inclusive growth a priority through austerity measures to contain its expenditure.
Treasury Cabinet Minister Ukur Yatani said they are targeting to below 23% expenditure of gross domestic product in the next three years from 27.8%.
READ:
“We will focus on implementing programs and policies that are aimed at strengthening economic resilience and further address financial weaknesses that pose risks to growth of the economy in the medium-term,” he said during the official opening of the Public Hearings for the FY2020/21 and the Medium-Term.
He also said they target 20% of revenue collection.
Treasury’s medium-term fiscal framework will be based on the following fiscal strategies: the medium-term fiscal framework will be based on the following fiscal strategies:
- Achieving economic growth rate of 7 percent over the medium-term
- Mobilizing revenue collection to over 20 percent of the GDP;
- Containing expenditure to below 23 percent of the GDP; and
- Reducing the budget deficit to about 3.5 percent of the GDP.
He acknowledged that Kenya’s public debt has been on the rise, mainly to fund critical development expenditure.
“Days of conspicuous consumption are long gone,” he said, adding that, “To this effect, we are not only paying attention to this development of debt levels but keenly examining the size and nature of public debt with a view to considering debt re-profiling and improving overall debt management.”
“We strike a balance between short-term projects with immediate outcomes and avoid putting too much emphasis on large long term projects with delayed benefits.”
“We are going to cut our cloth according to our size,” he said.
