OPINION: A tax perspective on the County Budget Transparency Survey 2025

Good research in policy debate is always welcome, and Bajeti Hub has done it again with the sixth edition of the County Budget Transparency Survey (CBTS) 2025, which was launched on June 4, 2026.

The study evaluates how timeliness in the publication of key budget documents, their availability, plus comprehensiveness in providing relevant information to the public determine how open devolved governments are.

From a fair taxation point of view, CBTS 2025 is critical in examining how revenue governance applies human rights-based approaches to taxation at sub-national levels in promoting tax awareness as an accountability practice.

CBTS 2025 reveals a slight improvement from 2024, when Kenyans were absolutely frustrated by the political class at all levels of leadership. Secondly, counties are upping their game on overall transparency and improving budget practices.

However, despite documents being readily available, they are not published within the allocated prescription of Kenya’s public finance law, meaning that they are not provided in good time as is legally required.

Additionally, though it can be said that public participation may have almost doubled in respect to the previous year 2024, overall civic engagement is still well below average. 

The Southeastern Kenya, North Rift Economic Bloc (NOREB), Mt Kenya/Aberdares Economic Bloc, and the Frontier Development Council (FCDC) regions perform positively. 

Meanwhile, the Jumuiya ya Kaunti za Pwani, Lake Region Economic Bloc (LREB), Nairobi, and Narok-Kajiado do poorly in terms of transparency performance.

Considering the national pensiveness in the country as Kenyans head towards budget reading on 11 June 2026 and the anniversary of the June 2024 protests, this begins to explain current questions around the legitimacy of public finance management in how it responds to citizen demands or needs.

Timeliness is at the heart of the rule of law, because it sows the seed of public goodwill needed for social accountability in service delivery. It signals that counties will deliver tangible outcomes in relation to provision of good health, education, water, sanitation, and other infrastructure plans.

More importantly, it also signals that there is a responsibility attached to the rights provided by the Constitution of Kenya 2010, in that citizens have accurate information to monitor issues and redress grievances through properly structured feedback mechanisms.

Budget transparency, therefore, improves the working relationships between the various arms of government, be they national or devolved, in keeping with the expectations of how Kenyans would want revenue collections to work for them.

Such responsiveness boosts the overall state of fiscal democracy in the country in setting the right precedents for the other human rights-based principles such as empowerment and inclusion in decision-making, thereby preventing the agitated and aggravated politicking currently taking shape in Kenya.

Research tools like the CBTS 2025 are therefore important in informing Kenyans about how their public institutions are running, how they can be improved, and whether they are impacting their lives. 

This is because it begins to mitigate the institutional culture of “ambushed” decision-making or information sharing that Kenyans do not appreciate.

Whenever the public has the requisite information, it begins a genuine good-faith process towards policy consensus, where citizens can take ownership and offer overall policy acceptance.

Governance by shock doctrine, where issues are introduced to the public by surprise announcements or media exposé and followed by braggadocio justifications that insist on the subject matter ignorance of the masses is simply reckless politics that will result in nothing but trouble.

Kenyans are tired of the condescending arguments on things that touch on their daily lives. They want their voices to matter as commonsense, a solemn constitutional practice, and sovereign act of democratic governance because their dignity, hopes, plus dreams depend on it.

Politicians and policymakers should therefore take note that the leadership citizens want in public finance will be the discipline to distil these complex processes into simplified routines that will build the confidence of Kenyans. 

That is how to build a more patriotic country for which justice is its shield and defender.

The author is the regional coordinator of the East African Tax and Governance Network (EATGN). Follow on X: @lennwanyama