• Kenya signs supplementary budget raising spending to 4.69 trillion shillings

• Funds target security, education, housing, agriculture, health priorities

• Government plans higher revenues, privatization to finance increase

Kenya's President William Ruto has signed the 2026 Supplementary Finance Act, raising total public spending to 4.69 trillion Kenyan shillings ($36.23 billion), up from 4.30 trillion shillings ($33.2 billion).

Assented to the Supplementary Appropriations Bill, 2026, at State House Nairobi. The Bill, now an Act, increases total expenditure by KSh393 billion from KSh4.3 trillion to KSh4.69 trillion.

It aligns the national budget to address urgent and emerging priorities, including… pic.twitter.com/ddy4vkFdhq

— William Samoei Ruto, PhD (@WilliamsRuto) April 8, 2026

The 393 billion shilling ($3.03 billion) increase comes three months before the end of the 2025/2026 fiscal year and is aimed at addressing urgent priorities, including security operations, disaster response and strategic infrastructure investment.

The security sector receives the largest share, with 60 billion shillings, including 2 billion set aside to compensate victims of recent protests. Education will receive an additional 45.28 billion shillings to support reforms and expand access.

The affordable housing programme will receive 25 billion shillings, while nearly 18 billion shillings is allocated to agriculture, including 10 billion for fertilizer subsidies.

In the health sector, 4 billion shillings will go toward clearing arrears linked to the former National Health Insurance Fund, while 5.4 billion will fund medical internships.

A further 350 million shillings has been allocated to the Blue Economy and Fisheries department to support an ocean conference in Mombasa and Kilifi in June, aimed at strengthening Kenya’s role in marine conservation and sustainable fishing.

The original 2025/2026 budget, adopted in February 2025, was based on six priorities: lowering the cost of living, tackling hunger, creating jobs, broadening the tax base, improving the balance of payments and promoting inclusive growth.

Kenya’s Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda (BETA 2023–2027) aims to support local communities, small producers and informal sector participants, combining short-term measures to boost household purchasing power with longer-term investment in education, health, housing and digital infrastructure.

To finance the higher spending, the government plans to increase non-tax revenues, including through privatisation. An additional 17.6 billion shillings has also been allocated to the Kenya Revenue Authority to strengthen tax collection.

Charlène N’dimon