Government finances are fairly unhealthy at present, but the finance minister, Uhuru Kenyatta, plans to start unwinding the fiscal stimulus in 2011/12, according to a recent budget outlook paper, which concurs with IMF thinking. The minister hopes that a combination of faster GDP growth, a broader tax base and stricter spending controls will bring the deficit down from a targeted 6.8% of GDP in 2010/11 (KSh188bn) to 5.3% of GDP in 2011/12 (KSh164bn). To fill the gap, the government will seek net external financing of 1.9% of GDP and net domestic financing of 3.4% of GDP (KSh105bn). Spending is set to retreat from 32.9% of GDP in the current fiscal year to 31.8% of GDP in the next-but the minister may be disappointed, especially given extra costs linked to the new constitution and the perennial difficulty in curbing departmental waste. The Economist Intelligence Unit continues to expect a budget deficit of 7% of GDP in 2010/11-followed by a small narrowing to 6.5% of GDP in 2011/12.