NAIROBI (Reuters) – Kenya’s finance ministry has cut the government’s planned spending for the 2019/20 (July-June) fiscal year by 2.1%, equivalent to 46.2 billion shillings ($445 million), a budget review document showed on Thursday.

The former finance minister Henry Rotich was criticised for raising spending in June and imposing additional tax measures on already squeezed taxpayers.

The current minister, Ukur Yatani, who was appointed to the post in an acting capacity in July, promised strict spending cuts aimed mainly at non-essential items such as foreign travel by officials.

The cuts to the budget for this fiscal year were mainly caused by revenue collection shortfalls, the ministry said in its budget review.

They were attained through “trade-offs and reallocations of the existing budgetary provisions,” it said.

($1 = 103.8000 Kenyan shillings)

Reporting by Duncan Miriri; editing by Toby Chopra and Jason Neely