Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich.[Photo/SoftKenya]
The Government will reduce expenditure on non-core activities to fund key priority areas, Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich has said.
Mr Rotich said to support economic growth; the Government had adopted a raft of measures to fund its key policy while safeguarding a sustainable debt position.
Speaking during the opening of the public hearings for the 2018/2019 Medium-Term Budget at the KICC, Nairobi, attended by Deputy President William Ruto, Mr Rotich said allocations to key areas- universal healthcare, food security, manufacturing housing; education, infrastructure, energy and social protection will be prioritized.
Among the raft of measures to shore-up revenues include expansion of the tax base to informal sector, lotteries, overhaul of the income tax act to remove most of the tax exemptions, rolling out of integrated customs management systems to prevent concealment, undervaluation, mis-declarations and falsifications of import documents.
Others, Mr Rotich said, were implementation of the regional electronic cargo tracking to tame transit diversion, scaling up on-going and routine activities such as pre-verification of conformity, benchmarking and auctions.