Falling revenue hits Government 2013/14 budget estimates

By Jackson Okoth

NAIROBI, KENYA: The total amount of revenue earned by the Government stood at Sh 861.9 billion during the 2012/13 financial year against the Sh1.2 trillion budgeted.

While tax revenue makes the largest bulk of Treasury’s revenue, it fell to Sh587.9 billion as at April 30, 2013 out of the projected Sh817.4 billion.

This is according to a statement of actual revenue and expenditure posted by the National Treasury in a Gazette Notice No. 6740, dated 16th May, 2013 and signed by Mr Henry Rotich, Cabinet Secretary, National Treasury.

The Government borrowed and repaid in total Sh216.4 billion from the domestic money market against a planned Sh277.7 billion target. External loans also fell to Sh17.5 billion against Sh37.4 billion that had been factored into the 2012/13 Budget.

The largest portion of Government recurrent expenditure went to the Teachers Service Commission, which spent Sh113.8 billion against Sh137.4 billion that had been budgeted for.

It was followed by Ministry of State for Defence Sh58.8 billion and Sh49.8 billion used up by the Ministry of State for Provincial Administration and Internal Security.

Other big beneficiaries of the recurrent expenditure cake included Ministry of Education Sh34.2 billion and Ministry of Medical Services Sh30.7 billion.

Treasury spent a total of Sh687.4 billion to finance recurrent expenditure against an allocation of Sh971.2 billion.

Top on the list of departments that exhausted their budget allocations include the Independent Elections and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), which used up the allocated Sh24.2 billion kitty.

The National Gender and Equality Commission spent Sh190 billion out of the 191.5 billion allocated.

The Exchequer spent Sh171.7 billion to finance development expenditure against a budgeted allocation of Sh282.9 billion as at April 30th, 2013.

The Ministry of Roads used up the largest portion of development expenditure at Sh28.3 billion against a budget of Sh45 billion.

The Ministry of East African Community did not use its entire Sh800,000 development expenditure allocation, while the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission used only Sh10 million out of a Sh102.5 million allocated.