April 2017 | by John Kinuthia, IBP Kenya
Every quarter, the government of Kenya must produce a budget implementation report that details actual spending against the budget approved by parliament. This responsibility is also given to the Office of the Controller of Budget (OCOB), an independent agency whose main role is to monitor budget implementation and ensure that funds are released against the budget.
Relatively little attention is paid to in-year budget implementation reports by citizens, parliament, or the media. To stimulate more debate about their contents, this paper looks at two recent implementation reports: the Budget Implementation Review Report for the full year of 2015/16 from the OCOB and the Fourth Quarterly Economic and Budget Review 2015/16 from the National Treasury.
Findings discussed in this paper include:
- Revenue collection in 2015/16 performed well, at 99 percent of target. Though they form a smaller part of total revenue, external funds remain below target.
- Domestic borrowing numbers (both budgeted figures and actual receipts) are unclear and inconsistent across several budget documents.
- Absorption of development funds improved significantly in 2015/16, though it remained below the 30 percent of total expenditure threshold set by law.
- Additional funding allocated to priority areas in the supplementary budget for 2015/16 to fight corruption was not spent.
Downloads
- What do Kenya’s Budget Implementation Reports Tell Us about National Government Spending in 2015/16? (April 2017)