Inside East Africa’s post-Covid 2021/22 recovery budgets
Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary for National Treasury and Planning, Ukur Yatani, at Parliament buildings on June 10, 2021 for the reading of the 2020/2021 annual budget. PHOTO | SILA KIPLAGAT | NMG
East Africa’s Finance ministers on Thursday presented their spending plans for the 2021/2022 fiscal year with a key focus on rebuilding economies ravaged by the Covid-19 pandemic, protecting local industries, keeping jobs and up-scaling investment in infrastructure projects critical to the faltering intra-regional trade.
The Treasury chiefs, who tabled the budgets against a backdrop of weakening macroeconomic environment, declining domestic revenue collections and mounting public debt, spelt out temporary taxation measures to protect local industries from cheap imports ahead of the conclusion of the review of the regional Common External Tariff (CET).
