Friday, September 30, 2022 – President William Ruto on Thursday ordered the National Treasury to cut Sh 300 billion from the 2022/23 budget to relieve Kenya’s spending and borrowing pressures.
In his address to a joint Parliamentary sitting on Thursday, President Ruto said the reduction of spending is pegged on reducing the government’s borrowing needs from an estimated Sh 900 billion in the fiscal year to close the financing hole.
“We should never borrow to finance recurrent expenditure. It is not right, prudent, or sustainable. It is simply wrong. We must bring ourselves and our country to sanity,” President Ruto told MPs and Senators.
“To this end, I have instructed the Treasury to work with Ministries to find at least Sh 300 billion in this year’s budget so that we can remove it because the market cannot sustain the kind of borrowing we are doing as a government.”
Ruto’s ingenious idea of reducing the budget by Sh 300 billion has been praised by many economists who termed it a game changer.
However, it has emerged that Ruto stole the idea from an economist who is associated with former Prime Minister Raila Odinga.
On September 12th, Saudi Arabia-based Kenyan economist, Mohamed Welihye, wrote on his Twitter account about how the new government can resuscitate the ailing economy.
Welihye, who is a close ally of Raila Odinga, said the new government should cut spending by Sh 300 billion to jump-start the economy, and this will give investors confidence in the economy.
This is a screenshot of what Mohamed Welihye wrote on September 12th.
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