The National Assembly Budget Committee has commenced sittings with the different departmental committees to review the 2025/26 budget by looking into the respective proposals for the financial year.  

Over the past two weeks, the committee has been engaging with various government agencies for their budget estimates, before proceeding to the next step that has just kicked off.

The Budget Committee chairman, Samuel Atandi, said the estimated Sh4.2 trillion national budget will cater for all citizens, as there are significant budget cuts, meaning that there will be no additional taxes for the ordinary citizen.  

“We are going to have a budget that addresses critical issues in the economy, issues that affect the lives of Kenyans. But, more importantly, this budget process is going to ensure that we are reaching the budget-making process,” he said.  Atandi noted that the previous budget-making processes did not significantly cater for the interests of the citizens.  

“This budget process is going to ensure that we are reaching the budget-making process.  In the past, the budget committee has been accused of running a sectarian budget, an unfair budget. We are making a budget that addresses all aspects, all Kenyan needs, all regions, all ethnic groups,” he stated. 

At the same time, he emphasised that for proper budget implementation for the financial year 2025/26, the government will have to rely on external borrowing to fund the fiscal deficit. 

He noted that, much as the public debt is creating concerns among stakeholders, the country will still have to embrace borrowing, but with proper management strategies. 

“There is no budget, there is no economy that is running a budget that is 100 per cent funded. Any economy, any household must borrow money to grow on a fund like this.  And therefore, I want to persuade Kenyans that borrowing is going to be part and parcel of the budget-making process,” he told journalists in Nairobi. 

Worrying comments   

This comment comes against the backdrop of worrying comments by the former Budget Committee Chairman Ndindi Nyoro, that the country is currently at the peak of falling into debt distress due to the continuous borrowing. 

He had argued that the high interest rates that come with the credit facilities were impacting the fiscal space for the country, as the majority of it claims Sh1.2 trillion of the national budge,t currently estimated at Sh4.2 trillion. 

“You collect revenues of our Sh2.4 trillion. You use over Sh1.2 trillion in paying interest rates on debt in kind. So that’s 50 per cent that you can do nothing about. If we take our revenue collection, you remove CFS, you remove salaries, you are already in debt,” he noted during a previous engagement organised by the Institute of Public Finance. 

Bottom line, the former chair was calling for prudence in regards to expenditure by the government, noting that advising the government to embrace restructuring and expenditure prioritisation. 

“We have to be all honest. If we do not become more prudent in the several months to come, we are likely to have a very big problem with our debt,” he said.   

In regard to the worrying debt levels that put the country in a precarious position, according to Nyoro,  the incumbent budget committee chairman has thrown shade at the previous regime, noting that the Sh8 trillion that accrued during the tenure was not effectively utilised. 

He argued that less than half of it was only used for development, despite the primary reason for the credit being for development. 

“One of the areas that basically mismanaged the economy is the fact that a lot of money was borrowed, which was not useful at all.  From 2013 to 2022, we borrowed more than 3 per cent of GDP, but most of the money that was spent on development was less than half of that,” he claimed.