INTERNATIONAL – Kenya’s 2019/20 (July-June) budget deficit is expected to fall to 4.7 percent of the gross domestic product from a revised 5.8 percent this fiscal year, a senior Treasury official said on Tuesday.
The East African nation’s government has been for ramping up borrowing and spending in recent years, leaving it with a fiscal deficit that peaked at 7 percent in the fiscal year that ended last June.
Kamau Thugge, the principal secretary at the Treasury, said at a public hearing on the country’s budget that the deficit was likely to drop to 2.8 percent of GDP by the 2022/23 fiscal year.
He said the government was likely to spend 2.81 trillion shillings ($27.40 billion) in the next fiscal year, up from a revised 2.47 trillion shillings in this financial year.
In June 2018, Rating Agency Moody's said that the implementation risks associated with some of the revenue and spending measures in Kenya's 2018/19 budget tabled on June 14 will challenge the achievement of fiscal consolidation, ratings agency Moody's said on Tuesday.
Moody's also said it was unlikely that President Uhuru Kenyatta's government would reverse the erosion in fiscal metrics that had led the agency to downgrade Kenya's rating to B2 earlier in the year.