Why Zero-based budgeting could be a game-changer

The Finance Bill 2025 is not just a fiscal instrument but an existential audit of the nation's soul. With public debt at 68.3 per cent of GDP, a threshold the World Economic Forum warns flirts with distress, this Bill tests whether Kenya can reallocate scarcity into shared prosperity. At its core lies Zero-Based Budgeting (ZBB), a radical shift in governance philosophy. No line item is inherited. No expense is automatic. Every shilling must fight for its place in a country where 35 per cent of citizens survive on less than $2 a day. ZBB is no longer about balance sheets but about dismantling everyday inequality.

ZBB overturns the ritual of "last year's plus 5 per cent," stripping patronage and inefficiency of their quiet immunity. Ministries, counties, and agencies must now justify every coin from scratch, anchoring budgets to need, impact, and equity. Early signals are unambiguous: Budgets for executive offices, long sanctuaries of opulence, have been cut by 18 post executive offices, with savings redirected to need based development. This is ZBB in action: Shifting resources from political theatrics to programmes that sustain life itself.

Even symbolic projects face scrutiny. The long delayed expansion of Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, built for 7.5 million passengers but straining under 10 million, must now justify its $650 million upgrade. It must prove job creation, tourism growth, and intra-African trade gains. Development must earn its budget, not inherit it.

This is ZBB's dual promise: Fiscal discipline married to developmental intentionality. Take the Nairobi Malaba transport corridor. Under the old system, its funding risked being sidelined by legacy projects with political clout. Under ZBB, it survives with airtight metrics: 30 per cent logistics cost reductions, faster market access for smallholder farmers, and regional integration dividends. Similarly, a proposed digital ID system must now demonstrate how it will reduce financial exclusion, which still traps 23 per cent of Kenyans, rather than serving as another vanity tech platform.

ZBB's transformative power lies in its ruthless transparency. For decades, Kenyans unwittingly funded a shadow state: Ghost projects, duplicated allocations, and tenders rigged for shell companies. The Auditor General's reports read like graveyards of lost billions. ZBB wields a scalpel: Programmes that cannot articulate their purpose face cuts; tax exemptions lacking proof of local job creation or supply chain impact are revoked. It terrifies the political class by replacing backroom immunity with front page accountability.

Yet caution is none-negotiable. While Kenya's debt crisis demands austerity, austerity without compassion is cruelty. ZBB risks becoming a blunt weapon if ministries prioritise easily quantifiable projects like highways over social programmes. Slashing school feeding schemes to fund a bypass may balance books but deepen hunger in Mathare. Counties like Mandera or West Pokot, lacking data expertise to build watertight cases, risk being outpaced by resourced regions.

ZBB must be guided by a moral compass. Redirecting Nairobi's vanity street lighting to boreholes in Kitui isn't just efficient; it's equitable in a nation where the richest 10 per cent hoard 40 per cent of wealth while the poorest 10 per cent subsist on 1.2 per cent. Every budget decision must pass an equity stress test.

ZBB also exposes systemic frailties. Only 12 of Kenya's 47 counties have staff trained in cost benefit analysis. Parliament's Budget Office lacks capacity to audit 80 per cent of submissions. Without urgent digitisation and training, ZBB risks becoming another paper tiger, co-opted to serve elite interests rather than public needs.

But the 2025 Bill plants seeds of hope. It mandates that 30 per cent of all ZBB justifications draw directly from public participation data. A mother in Kibera can now demand funding for her local clinic to reduce maternal deaths, not because it sits in a swing constituency, but because it saves lives. A farmer in Bungoma can advocate for grain storage over ceremonial ribbon cutting. Innovations like Nyamira's Banana Magic haircare venture transition from quirky novelties to scalable enterprises worthy of public investment.