Nairobi — Technical funding to East African countries is bound to be affected negatively following budget constraints the International Monetary Fund is facing.

Finance minister Amos Kimunya is now urging the countries to develop their own capacity to solve technical issues in the face of the threat.

"While it is my hope that the constraints the IMF is facing will not lead to significant budget cuts, we must be vigilant to such developments and have in place mechanisms for safeguarding capacity building activities," said the minister at the Whitesands Hotel.

He was speaking when he officially opened the East Afritac (Africa Technical Centre) steering committee meeting.

The minister said one way of ensuring that the East African countries were not affected by the development was to develop a strong capacity in member countries and use technical assistance more productively and efficiently.

The East Afritac has focused capacity building on key areas that are strategic to economic management.

They include implementation of public financial management reforms and a shift towards risk-based management in revenue administration within national revenue and customs administrations.

Other areas are strengthening of banking supervision regulatory frameworks, strengthening of monetary policy formulation and modernisation of payment systems and rebasing and revision of annual and quarterly national accounts.

The Kenya Government, is undertaking structural reforms on various fronts to improve efficiency in the allocation of resources and to ensure effective public sector service delivery.