Explainer: How Gov’t plans to spend Ksh.3.9 trillion in 2024/2025 budget

This year's budget involved an increase in total government expenditure to Ksh.3.9 trillion from Ksh.3.6 trillion in the 2023/24 financial year.

Of the Ksh3.9 trillion, the Treasury CS listed five core areas: Agriculture, Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise (MSME), Housing and Settlement, Healthcare and Digital Superhighway and creative industry. 

Agriculture 

The government allocated Ksh.54.6 billion to the agricultural sector as a means to boost productivity among farmers. 

From the amount, Ksh.10 billion was allocated to the fertiliser subsidy programme, Ksh.647 million for the small scale irrigation and value addition project, Ksh.2.5 billion for emergency locusts response, and Ksh.2.4 billion for youth and women empowerment in agriculture.

Food security and crop diversification project received Ksh.642 million while livestock resources management received Ksh.12.3 billion. 

To mitigate cases of drought in the country, the government allocated Ksh.182 million towards the National Drought Emergency Fund.

MSME

To enhance the MSME sector, the government focused on four areas to enable capacity building and provide access to affordable credit for ease of trade. 

This comprised the Hustler Fund (Ksh.5 billion), Youth Enterprise Development Fund (Ksh.200 million), Centre for Entrepreneurship project (Ksh.162.5 million), and Ksh.1.9 billion for Rural Kenya Financial Inclusion Facility.

Housing and Settlement

The Affordable Housing project has been one of President William Ruto's legacy projects as he seeks to facilitate housing access and in turn create jobs for the youth. 

A total of Ksh.92.1 billion was allocated to the housing programme, whereby Ksh.67.4 billion will go to the Affordable and Social Housing infrastructure, Ksh.11.3 billion to the Kenya Informal Settlement improvement project, and Ksh.1.1 billion to the construction of markets. 

Healthcare

To realise its Universal Health Coverage (UHC) agenda, the government allocated Ksh.127 billion to the sector. 

Some of the activities will involve provision of free maternity healthcare (Ksh.2 billion), medical cover for the elderly and disabled (Ksh.861 million), primary healthcare fund (Ksh.4.1 billion), emergency, chronic and critical illness fund (Ksh.2 billion), and vaccines and immunisation programmes (Ksh.4.6 billion). 

Digital Superhighway

Part of the plans to achieve widescale connectivity across the country, the government  allocated Ksh.16.3 billion. 

Konza data centre and smart city facilities received Ksh.5.2 billion while the Kenya digital economy acceleration project was allocated Ksh.2.8 billion. 

The other key areas involved the last mile county connectivity network which was allocated Ksh.2.8 billion and the digital superhighway and shared services which received Ksh.1.8 billion.