Can Kenya really cut budget gap to 5.7 per cent of GDP?

National Treasury Director General Budget Fiscal and Economic Affairs Geofrey Mwau (right) is joined by International Monetary Fund Public financial management expert Richard Allen during a press conference in which IMF published a fiscal transparency evaluation report for Kenya in Nairobi on 12/07/2016. [Willis Awandu/Standard]

Last week, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) team told the Government to do more about austerity despite the fact that the State has literally stalled Sh410 billion worth of projects.

What the IMF is simply saying is that for a country that is constitutionally bound to spend 30 per cent of its budget on development, President Uhuru Kenyatta’s freeze on projects is cosmetic.