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{
    "id": 804871,
    "url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/804871/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 149,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Henry Rotich",
    "speaker_title": "The Cabinet Secretary for the National Treasury",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13142,
        "legal_name": "Henry Rotich",
        "slug": "henry-rotich"
    },
    "content": "In order to promote development of low cost housing for Kenyans, I propose to amend the Employment Act to provide that an employer shall contribute to the National Housing Development Fund, in respect of each employee in his or her employment, 0.5 per cent of the employees’ gross monthly emolument subject to a maximum of Kshs5,000 while the employee will contribute 0.5% of their monthly gross earnings. We intend to roll out universal health coverage to all households by 2022, so as to guarantee access to quality and affordable health care. This will involve reconfiguring the National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) and reforming the governance of private insurance companies to align them to the universal health coverage. His Excellency the President has already launched a comprehensive NHIF medical scheme for secondary school students to insure them for all kinds of injuries and diseases. We expect this to ease the financial burden of their parents. Working with counties, we shall scale up the provision of specialised medical equipment and increase the number of health facilities at the community level, including mobile health services, in order to increase access to specialised healthcare. We plan to expand the “Linda Mama” programme (free maternity programme) to mission hospitals and private hospitals and to enlist Community Health Volunteers to help in healthcare service provision at the grassroots level. We will also continue to train more doctors, while sourcing specialised skills from outside to address existing gaps. In the next one year, we will undertake a universal health coverage pilot in four counties namely: Kisumu, Nyeri, Isiolo and Machakos. The lessons learnt from the pilot in terms of capacity of the NHIF, and the requirements on infrastructure, commodities and personnel will inform the roll out to all the counties in the subsequent years. We acknowledge the limited budgetary space to implement the Big Four Plan. As such, we will leverage on the partnership especially through the PPP framework, with the private sector and development partners. Our development partners have supported us in various projects that have uplifted our living standards. We value this support very much. We will be engaging with them in the spirit of true partnership to make the Big Four Agenda Plan a reality. Already, many of our development partners are funding projects within the Big Four Agenda sectors. But in addition to that, and with a view to mobilising additional resources, they have indicated their willingness to review the rest of their portfolio to align them with the Big Four Agenda Plan. Let me now turn to the fiscal policy and budget framework for the FY 2018/19 budget and the medium-term. In this fiscal year ending in June 2018, we estimate a fiscal deficit of 7.2 per cent of GDP, down from 9.1 per cent of GDP in the previous year. This reduction in the deficit was despite additional expenditure requirements arising from the severe drought, prolonged electioneering period, the implementation of several Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBAs) combined with shortfalls in revenue collections. In order to recoup the revenue shortfalls during the first half of the year, we agreed on a number of revenue enhancement initiatives with the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) in February this year. With the additional funding of Kshs4.3 billion from the National Treasury, KRA committed to collect additional revenues of Kshs74 billion by end of June this year. By April 2018, KRA had collected Kshs33 billion and we expect them to deliver the remaining revenue yield by the end of The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}