Kenya revises economic growth projection for 2014

Kenya's senior treasury official said Friday they have revised the country's economic growth projections for the 2014 due to the weak economic performance in the first quarter.
National Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich told a budget hearing meeting in Nairobi that the figure has been revised downwards from 5.8 percent to between 5 and 5.5 percent.
"This is primarily due to the weak tourism performance as well as the slow implementation of development programs by national and county governments," Rotich said during the launch of the 2015/ 2016-2017/2018 Medium Term Budget process.
"The implication of this is that the country's total resource envelop may have to be reviewed," Rotich said.
According to the National Treasury, Kenya's economy expanded by 4.1 percent in the first half of this year.
Rotich said that the 2014/2015 financial year budget was prepared, taking into account the global economic developments, particularly in the Euro-zone area.
"Even though some economic recovery has been noted in some countries, those economies are still struggling as their growth rates are still well below their potential," Rotich said.
"Notwithstanding the sluggish growth in those economies, Kenya' s economy showed its resilience to external shocks as it grew by 4. 7 percent in 2013," he added.
The East African nation intends to restructure its public expenditure towards priority areas.
"The 2015/2016 budget will have more focus towards development expenditure in areas such as energy, infrastructure, information communication technology, agriculture and social expenditure in education and health," he said.
The National Treasury is currently implementing a program- performance based budgeting in order to strengthen the management of public resources.
"This requires greater accountability from managers of public resources who will be required to explain the manner in which they implemented government programs," Rotich said.