NAIROBI, Aug 12 (Reuters) – Kenya’s new Finance Minister John Mbadi said on Monday he would clean up the bloated government payroll and carry out tax reforms to cut spending and bolster the government’s finances.

The East African nation, which has been rocked by deadly protests over the last two months, faces gaping budget deficits and needs to boost revenue collection to meet conditions set by the International Monetary Fund for a lending programme.

“Anyone who is standing in the way of that reform, please give way,” Mbadi said, referring to a long-delayed project to link government payrolls with technology systems to weed out ghost workers and pensioners. “Payroll reforms must be done.”

Mbadi said he would also speed up reforms at the Kenya Revenue Authority, which collects taxes.

“If we could increase our revenue collection to GDP by just about 3%, I am sure that would give us almost 400 billion shillings additionally,” he said, pledging to continue with his predecessor’s tax amnesty programme.

The amnesty, which allows those who pay overdue taxes to gain exemption from penalties, has so far netted about 43 billion shillings ($334.63 million), Mbadi said.

($1 = 128.5000 Kenyan shillings)

(Reporting by Duncan Miriri; editing by Mark Heinrich)