Heads of directorates, departments, units and regions convened from 19th to 25th August, 2022 to prepare budget proposals for Financial Years 2023/24 – 25/26 and attendant reports required for Medium Term Estimates Budget Framework (MTEF) by the National Treasury and Planning. The preparation was in line with Treasury circular providing guidelines for preparation of the FY 2023/24 and Medium Term Budget issued on 24th August, 2022 that all Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDAs) are required to abide by. They outline processes, procedures and timelines to be followed by MDA in the budget process. The guidelines that sets of government budgeting processes, are in line with section 36 of the Public Financial Management Act, 2012
The week-long intense session, was preceded by all functional areas submissions of their priority programmes that formed the basis of deliberations. Speaking at the start of the forum, Assistant Registrar Ali A. Surraw noted ORPP’s commitment to abide by guidelines give that promotes fiscal discipline and creates a nexus of planning & strategic with budgeting. His counterpart, CPA Florence Birya urging for quality of reports and adherence to timelines stipulated in the budget guidelines.
Registrar of Political Parties, Ann Nderitu while officially opening the forum noted with appreciation government’s resource support to ORPP especially during the electioneering period that enabled implementation of impactful programmes geared towards better participation of the citizenry in the general election. She called on the Office Senior team steering the process to secure accountability and prudent utilization of allocated funds as it has been ORPP custom. “In the current MTEF, process owners while accounting for resources allocated in the preceding period, must prioritize programmes cognizant of the global and country’s economic outlook”, urged the Registrar.
At the close of the sitting, Programme Based Report (PPR), Budget proposals for the period and Programme- Based Budget (PBB) were produced as required. The PPR is a report consolidating major achievements for FY 2019/2020- 2020/21. In the current PPR developed, achievements such as registration in political parties, regulation of parties including audits, legal and ICT-based reforms, capacity building programmes, partnership forged have been outlined.
Team groups delve deep into the work of their respective budget areas during the session
In the forum, as guided by Senior Chief Finance Senior, Joshua Kimulu and Finance team, the conveners of the meeting members were apprised of key highlights of the expected new government priorities and projected national and global economic projections. “ The economic growth in the sub Saharan Africa region is projected to slow from 4.2 % in 2021 to 3.7% in 2022. Kenya economic growth is expected to be at 6.0 % in 2022 from an estimated growth of 6.6% in 2021”, reads the guidelines. Guidance has further been given to the effect that “ MDAs are required to ensure that priorities are accommodated within the resource envelope and ensure that the focus is on the implementation of strategic priorities outlined in the Medium Term Development Plan of the Vision 2030”.
The ORPP falls under the Governance, Justice, Law and Order (GJL&O) MTEF sector with 14 other public institutions that compete for resources based on defense of their prioritization and justification of programmes identified. The government classifies MDA s with closely related functions to form a Sector Working Group in line with UN- classification of functions of government. This MTEF period, the SWGs have been retained at 10.