Treasury Cabinet Secretary is presenting Sh4.29 trillion budget for the financial year 2025/2026 in Parliament as protests escalate in the streets of Nairobi after protesters set vehicles ablaze and police fire teargas to disperse crowds angered by the death in custody of a political blogger Albert Ojwang' last week.
The e-government procurement system is a complete departure from the manual processes and will lead to increased bidder participation, enhance efficiency in processing of procurement requests and increase authenticity of procurement documents through integration with various government systems.
“We have since trained suppliers and to date 400 e-government procurement system end users comprising public finance management staff and suppliers from both the national and county governments have been trained in readiness for full rollout in July 2025.”
“Effective July 1, 2025 the Kenya electronic payment and settlement system will transition to a 24/7 capability. This will support round the clock trade, enable faster clearing of government payments, facilitate real time business-to-business transactions and provide greater flexibility for consumers and financial institutions.”
Pending bills
The government remains committed to resolving the long-standing issue of pending bills, dating back to 2005 in order to restore confidence in government processes.
The committee on verification of the bills will submit final report by June 30, 2025. Since its formation, the committee has received 65,625 claims valued at over Sh571 billion. Some 57 percent of these (an equivalent of Sh229 billion) has been cleared for payment.
Public assets
To enhance the management and utilisation of public assets, the government is developing a policy on public sector assets valuation.
“The policy will support accurate financial reporting, strengthen fiscal discipline and inform evidence-based public investment decisions.”
“In addition, government will develop a framework to facilitate identification of public sector assets and this will ensure accuracy and completeness of assets registered which are critical for transition to accrual basis of accounting.”
Exam fees waiver
The National Treasury is in consultation with Ministry of Education to among others come up with policy on the best cost-sharing mechanisms regarding examination fees for students.
“There’s need to undertake a critical evaluation of the costing of examinations and assess the sustainability of the programme in view of the prevailing fiscal constraints and explore optimal options for delivering national examinations in order to ensure economy and value for money in public spending.
“A key consideration is the merits of public funding of examination fees for all primary and secondary school candidates, including those from well-off households as opposed to targeting the vulnerable students in our schools.
Taxation
Government is focused on widening the tax base while at the same time reducing the burden of compliance. Priority sectors include the digital economy and the small and medium enterprises.
Public debt
“The government will explore emerging funding instruments such as debt swaps, diaspora bonds, sustainability-linked bonds and environmental social and governance (ESG) instruments to fund budget deficits and manage public debt. This strategic approach will not only diversify our financing options but also strengthen international partnerships and promote sustainable growth.
“The government is keen on sustaining transparency and improving efficiency on public debt service. To this end, the National Treasury is in the process of integrating the commonwealth meridian debt management system with the integrated financial management information system (Ifmis) and the core banking systems of Central Bank of Kenya (CBK).
Treasury single accounts
"To enhance cash management, the migration of ministries, department and agencies is ongoing, the CBK is scheduled to go live with the T24 system upgrade in July 2025.
This upgraded platform will support the implementation of the treasury single account core functionalities and facilitate the National Treasury to roll out the key elements. Concurrently, the Treasury is on track to onboard county government in 2026 and the final phase will involve integrating all reminding national government's entities by 2026/2027."
2024 Gen Z protests
“The message from Kenyans was clear. Since I took office at the National Treasury and Economic Planning I assured Kenyans that we shall strive to reduce tax burden. In this respect, the Finance Bill, 2025 has neither proposed new taxes nor proposed new tax rates.
Instead, we have chosen to enhance tax revenue collections through administrative reforms by simplifying and streamlining tax laws to make them clearer and easier to implement, thereby improving taxpayer compliance.
Earlier story
The Treasury will unveil this Thursday afternoon a Sh4.29 trillion budget for the financial year 2025/2026, with a focus on revenue-raising measures.
National Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi displays the Budget briefcase ahead of unveiling the government spending plan for the financial year 2025/2026 in Parliament on June 12, 2025.
Photo credit: Dennis Onsongo | Nation Media Group
The government estimates that it will raise Sh3.328 trillion as ordinary revenue and appropriation-in-aid, while Sh916.5 billion will come from domestic and external borrowing.
Parliament on Wednesday reorganised the Treasury’s Sh4.29 trillion budget, with the military emerging as the biggest winner, getting an additional Sh13 billion allocation, while public financial management, education and sports suffered the steepest cuts.
The Budget and Appropriations Committee, which oversees and reviews the budget, added Sh33.01 billion to the estimates that Treasury had submitted to Parliament ahead of the formal budget reading on Thursday.
Photo credit: Design by Gennevieve Awino/Stanslaus Manthi | Compiled by Patrick Alushula/Kepha Muiruri
Parliament’s reorganisation has seen the budget of the Executive jump to Sh2.462 trillion from the Sh2.428 trillion that the Treasury had proposed. Meanwhile, Parliament's budget has dropped to Sh47.99 billion from Sh49.49 billion while that of the Judiciary has moved to Sh27.78 billion from Sh27.69 billion, respectively.
The government plans to spend Sh1.09 trillion on debt service in the 2025/26 financial year while Sh405 billion will go to counties.
Reporting by Peter Mburu, John Mutua, Kabui Mwangi, Kepha Muiruri, Patrick Alushula, Edna Mwenda and Hellen Githaiga.
