Budget reading across the world is the most listened and watched event on radio and television respectively besides football and elections.
Coincidentally, in East Africa, budget and football will be the two most followed events on Thursday.
And talking of East Africa, where Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Rwanda will be presenting their country's budget concurrently, did you know that this trend has been ongoing for the last 11 years?
Well, this was also the same trend after independence where Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania used to present their budget on the same day but under a common East African currency. However, this was to come to a halt after the June 10, 1965 budget reading.
While reading the budget that day, a parliamentary orderly moved to the dispatch box and whispered something to the then Finance Minister James Gichuru. Gichuru was the first Minister of Finance in post-independent Kenya.
The news was that his Tanzanian counterpart Paul, Bomani had announced that his country was breaking from common currency in East Africa and would issue notes and coins bearing the image of founding President Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, according to Daily Nation.
Ugandan Finance Minister Kalule Settala had also just announced the same thing in his budget reading.
Caught unawares, Gichuru immediately went off the written text and similarly announced that Kenya would establish its own Central Bank and issue notes and coins bearing the image of founding President Jomo Kenyatta. The new currency was issued the following year in 1966.
Gichuru was to go on and present four other budgets up to June 1969 which laid the economic foundation of Kenya to remain ahead in the East Africa region.
The strong Kenya shilling in the East Africa region has its roots on the Gichuru finance policy.
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