East African finance ministers are presenting their spending plans for the 2025/26 fiscal year against amid tough economic environments and global and regional geopolitical tensions.

 

Here are the highlights of the budgets.

Kenya budgetKenya's Cabinet Secretary for Treasury, John Mbadi, will unveil a Ksh4.29 trillion ($33.03 billion) budget for the financial year 2025/2026, with a focus on revenue-raising measures.

The government estimates that it will raise Ksh3.328 trillion ($25.63 billion) as ordinary revenue and appropriation-in-aid, while Ksh916.5 billion ($7.06 billion) will come from domestic and external borrowing.

Parliament on Wednesday reorganised the Treasury’s budget, with the military emerging as the biggest winner, getting an additional Ksh13 billion ($100.1 million) allocation, while public financial management, education and sports suffered the steepest cuts.

The Budget and Appropriations Committee, which oversees and reviews the budget, added Ksh33.01 billion ($254.18 million) to the estimates that Treasury had submitted to Parliament ahead of the formal budget reading on Thursday.

Follow live proceedings here:Rwanda budgetRwanda’s Finance minister, Yusuf Murangwa, will present a budget of Rwf7 trillion ($4.9 billion) for the 2025/26 financial year, which starts in July.

Kigali expects to spend an additional Rwf1.2 trillion ($840 million) — a 21 percent increase — compared to Rwf5.8 trillion ($4.06 billion) for the current financial year.

Key priority areas include the construction of a new airport in Bugesera, as well as agriculture, education, healthcare, housing, and improving electricity connectivity.

The government expects to raise Rwf4.1 trillion ($2.87 billion) in domestic revenues, accounting for 58 percent of the budget.

Uganda budgetUganda finance minister Matia Kasaija is reading the country’s budget with a focus on oil and gas activities and infrastructure development with hopes of increasing the economy’s gross domestic product (GDP) by Ush27.3 trillion ($7.55 billion) during the period.

The Treasury expects to spend Ush72.3 trillion ($20 billion) in the 2025/26 fiscal year on government programmes which is relatively unchanged compared with Ush72.1 trillion ($19.94 billion) in the current (2024/25) fiscal year.

The spending targets among others investment in oil and gas activities and infrastructure projects such as maintenance of roads and bridges, rehabilitation of the meter gauge railway and construction of the standard gauge railway as well as water transport.

This is projected to lift the country’s total annual output to Ush 250 trillion ($69.16 billion) in the 2025/26 fiscal year from Ush 222.7 trillion ($63 billion) in 2024/25 fiscal year, according to the country’s National Budget framework paper for the 2025-2026-2029/2030 fiscal years.

Uganda’s economy has fully recovered from the previous global, regional and domestic shocks and is on the right growth path.

The economy grew by 6.1 percent in the 2023/24 fiscal year from 5.3 percent in the 2022/23 fiscal year and is projected to grow by 6.4 percent in the 2024/2025 fiscal year.

Reporting by Hellen Githaiga and Patrick Alushula © Copyright 2022 Nation Media Group. All Rights Reserved. Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info).