Kenya Public Expenditure Analysis 2019 : Creating Fiscal Space to Deliver the Big Four while Undertaking a Needed Fiscal Consolidation
The Kenyan government remains committed to a planned fiscal consolidation pathway, which should help contain public debt stock at a sustainable level. Nonetheless, there are significant challenges stemming from a slowdown in revenue collection, a g...
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| Format: | Report |
| Language: | English |
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World Bank, Washington, DC
2019
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/466691563357796716/Kenya-Public-Expenditure-Analysis-2019-Creating-Fiscal-Space-to-Deliver-the-Big-Four-while-Undertaking-a-Needed-Fiscal-Consolidation http://hdl.handle.net/10986/32252 |
| Summary: | The Kenyan government remains committed
to a planned fiscal consolidation pathway, which should help
contain public debt stock at a sustainable level.
Nonetheless, there are significant challenges stemming from
a slowdown in revenue collection, a growing demand for
transfers to county governments, and the need to fund the
big four agenda. These issues raise the probability for
fiscal slippages, requiring adequate mitigation to safeguard
macroeconomic stability. This report provides an overview of
the challenges in revenue mobilization, the size and
composition of the national government expenditures, and the
efficiency of this spending over the last five years. The
analysis identifies options for supporting ongoing fiscal
consolidation and creating fiscal space for the big four and
broad public services delivery. There are three key
messages: first, Kenya’s tax revenue as a share of gross
domestic product (GDP) has decreased and decoupled from the
growth in the economy, suggesting some important constraints
to enhancing revenue collection. Second, government spending
is allocated well (to infrastructure and human capital) but
there is scope to improve outcomes from the use of these
resources. Third, ensuring efficiency and effectiveness of
public spending is critical given tight fiscal space and the
expenditure needs under the big four. |
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