Kitui County Deputy Governor Augustine Kanani promises a Climate Smart Budget:
As humanity is facing a triple planetary crisis of Climate Change, Pollution and Nature and Biodiversity Loss, Kitui’s second in command has assured residents of a more climate sensitive budget, objectively addressing the 5 year failed rain seasons.
Kitui County has experienced 5 failed seasons. This has slowly plugged residents into hunger and hopelessness. Rain fed agriculture is no longer sustainable and farms are becoming ’empty’ by the day.
Kitui County is on an ambitious program to cushion its people by increasing water harvesting structures whose main purpose is to supplement rains to the maturity of the crop each season.
Speaking at a public participation event on Kitui County Fiscal strategy paper for 2023/2024 financial year in KEFRI, Kitui Deputy Governor emphasized on strategic uptake of the sand dam idea to harness rain water runoffs, to supplement unpredictable length of rains.
Too, Kanani noted with concern the global uprisings which have affected global economies. “We need to have sufficient grains in our stores to carry us through unforeseen economic turbulence, like what COVID-19 and war in Ukraine has taught us.” Noted the DG
The Deputy Governor regretted that the situation had prompted a decline in investment activities within the county leading to low own source revenue collection hence curtailing government’s development investment.
“We are therefore rolling out a fiscal policy which will curtail non-core expenditure while prioritizing high impact investment expenditure so as to cushion our people from these hard economic times.
“And to realize this the government has prioritized programs aimed at increasing the household incomes through accelerated rural economic development by investing in the productive sectors of the economy,” he added.
The FY 2023/24 CFSP, themed “Economic recovery agenda to promote inclusive growth”, sets the county government’s priority programs and projects to be implemented through the medium-term period for the financial year 2023/2024 to 2025/2026.
The document also provides an overview of recent economic development and outlook as well as expenditure ceilings for County departments, units and agencies and detailed guidelines that are aimed at structuring County Government expenditure towards priority areas.
The programs and policies captured in the document reflect the development proposals of the Kitui Citizenry and are anchored under the County Integrated Development Plan (CIDP) 2023-2027 and the FY 2023/2024 Annual Development Plan.
