How to finance our 2021 -2022 Budget

Five ways to finance Kenya’s 2021 -2022 budget

To finance our budget, let do five things: First, we should make our 283 parastatals generate wealth, where for example if each generated one Billion on average, this would translate to 283 billion Kenya shillings. This can finance many roads in the country, Chines government heavily utilizes such entities funds to grow its economy. These entities should gradually cease their over-reliance from the exchequer. The Parastatals reforms started by H.E The President in 2013 should be finalized by merging some of them for efficiency and productivity sake. These entities should strictly adhere to the Mwongozo code of conduct and good corporate governance, while their boards should be competitively filled and also with people with the right motivation and drive to see our country develop. Secondly, we should revitalize the mining sector which can contribute up to 10% of our GDP, because we have immense mineral potential including: gold, iron ore (under the African Karoo formation belt that extends from the South Africa), talc, soda ash, limestone (cement making), niobium, salt, rare earth minerals, gemstones and unexploited oil near or within our water bodies. More of these minerals should be explored. This can be done through greater application of Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) which will introduce innovative financing, technology, efficiency, effectiveness, innovation and conversion of raw materials into finished products. This will create more employment opportunities and also revenue for the government.

Thirdly, we should increase funding for research, innovation and entrepreneurship to absorb more youth and women, including universities. It is unhealthy for example to see that many youths and intellectuals are choosing to go to politics at their prime age when they should be championing research and entrepreneurship. We have many innovations and inventions locally that just require a slight support from exchequer to produce national pride and capitalization. Fourth, more financing should go to housing and housing infrastructure projects to incentivize Kenyans to do their housing. Housing programmes have up to 70% backward and forward linkages with other sectors of the economy and hence it’s one of those sectors to fund when we are in a recovery mode. Fifth, the ever shrinking public budget financing realties calls for greater application of Public Private Partnerships(PPPs), that are able to introduce more capital, innovation, effectiveness, efficiency, managerial expertise, whole of life cycle of projects where a contractor factors in the issue of design, finance, construction, operation and maintenance at the beginning and not on a had hoc basis. This has the ability to lead to massive savings and hence development of superior products than in traditional procurement that is laden with lots of wastage, misappropriation and mis-allocation of resources and corruption. This is because under PPPs, the parties participate jointly in setting goals, standards, outputs and also, the public sector is focused on outputs and not inputs and also there is risk sharing, which means all parties are keen to deliver their part of the deal. What say you?