Public finance, or how governments at all levels raise and allocate money, is in evidence everywhere you look. That pothole destroying your car. The health clinic without medicine. The dilapidated school. Public money is not government money. It is yours, writes Kenyan finance scholar Lyla Latif in her new book Governing Public Money. Drawing on a decade of experience across 32 countries, the author sets out what ails Africa’s public finances and what could change. The Conversation Africa asked her about the book’s main themes.
What prompted you to write this book?
Most books on public finance are written by men, from institutions in the global north, about systems designed in the global north. There is not a single comprehensive treatment of public finance law focused on Kenya or, for that matter, on any African country. I wanted to change that.
