Hits and Misses: Budget Credibility in the Context of COVID-19 in Kenya

Budget credibility is the ability of the government to raise revenue and spend in line with the approved budget. This paper looks at how the Kenyan national government’s fiscal response to COVID-19 has been implemented. In addition, it evaluates whether the government kept to the commitments that it made through the Supplementary Budgets passed in 2020, especially in response to the pandemic. In doing so, we hoped to understand whether the government’s capacity to spend as planned according to the budget was undermined by the crisis, especially in sectors that are critical to addressing the crisis, such as health and social protection.