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{
"id": 1550582,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1550582/?format=api",
"text_counter": 513,
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"speaker": null,
"content": "Second Reading"
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"id": 1550583,
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"content": "THE DIVISION OF REVENUE BILL (National Assembly Bill No. 4 of 2025)"
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{
"id": 1550584,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1550584/?format=api",
"text_counter": 515,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Hon. Peter Kaluma",
"speaker_title": "The Temporary Speaker",
"speaker": {
"id": 1565,
"legal_name": "George Peter Opondo Kaluma",
"slug": "george-peter-opondo-kaluma"
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"content": " The Chairperson of the Budget and Appropriations Committee, Hon. Samuel Atandi, move the Bill."
},
{
"id": 1550585,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1550585/?format=api",
"text_counter": 516,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Alego Usonga, ODM",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Samuel Atandi",
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"content": " Hon. Temporary Speaker, I beg to move that the Division of Revenue Bill (National Assembly Bill No. 4 of 2025) be now read a Second Time. Before I go into the contents of the Bill before the House, let me begin by acknowledging and appreciating the support that we, as a Committee, have received from the leadership of the House, led by the Speaker and our very able Clerk, Mr Samuel Njoroge. This is the first substantive agenda I handle as the new Chairman of the Budget and Appropriations Committee following my nomination and subsequent election. I also thank the leadership of the House and my coalition, which had faith in me to handle this matter. Budget making is a very long and tedious process that involves many stakeholders. They start from the Ministry and move to Parliament through committees. I give the House an assurance because we are taking over this leadership at a time when most Members have expressed concerns about the way the Committee was being run in the past. I assure Members that under my leadership, the Committee will engage in thorough consultations with Members. Most Members will be happy with the outcome of the report that we will bring before this House for the budget-making process. It is done in Departmental Committees. I urge Members to be vigilant in their committees to ensure they fully participate in the budget-making process. As you can see, I am operating from your right side. This is also something that I want to emphasise as the reality of the broad-based Government. In ordinary times, I would not be on this side. Therefore, I want to tell Kenyans, especially Members of my party who are still doubting the reality of the broad-based Government, that it is real and working. Kenya is one united country, and the processes of law and budget making, as well as the running of the country, are now the business of all Kenyans. Nobody is going to be discriminated against, especially in resource sharing, because the opportunity to work for Kenyans has been given to all of us."
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"id": 1550586,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1550586/?format=api",
"text_counter": 517,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Alego Usonga, ODM",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Samuel Atandi",
"speaker": null,
"content": "Before I discuss the substance of the Bill, let me say that we are discussing this Bill at a time when our economy is fundamentally recovering. This has been buttressed by very fundamental macro-economic factors that point to the fact that we are doing very well as an economy. Let me highlight a few of those macro-economic factors. One of them is inflation. Over the past year, inflation has been coming down from a high rate of 5.7 per cent to now 3.5 per cent as of February. This has not just happened. There are global factors that have helped us to tame inflation as well as domestic factors."
},
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"id": 1550587,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1550587/?format=api",
"text_counter": 518,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Alego Usonga, ODM",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Samuel Atandi",
"speaker": null,
"content": "Some of the global factors that have assisted us to tame inflation include the easing of the monetary policy by the Federal Reserve. Over the last year, the Federal Reserve has been deliberately reducing interest rates, and this has percolated back to us. There have also been deliberate investments in our country's agricultural sector. We are now food-sufficient, which has also led to the stability of our food prices. These two factors have helped us tame the high inflation rates, which is why we are celebrating the fact that the economy is positively recovering."
},
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"id": 1550588,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1550588/?format=api",
"text_counter": 519,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Alego Usonga, ODM",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Samuel Atandi",
"speaker": null,
"content": "The other factor that has helped us is the reduction in domestic borrowing. Over the last year, the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) rate, the rate at which the Central Bank lends money to other banks, has also come down from a high rate of 13 per cent to 10.75 per cent today. The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
},
{
"id": 1550589,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1550589/?format=api",
"text_counter": 520,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Alego Usonga, ODM",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Samuel Atandi",
"speaker": null,
"content": "What this means is that investors are now able to access cheap credit. When investors and households can access cheap credit, it means that they are able to invest. When they invest, this is very positive for the economy. I want to take this opportunity to thank and congratulate the managers of the Central Bank, Dr Kamau Thugge and Dr Susan Koech. These two individuals have done a wonderful job helping us tame runaway interest rates."
},
{
"id": 1550590,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1550590/?format=api",
"text_counter": 521,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Alego Usonga, ODM",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Samuel Atandi",
"speaker": null,
"content": "The economy is expected to grow by about 5.3 per cent compared to 4.6 per cent in the last financial year. Again, this is pegged on the fact that we are still projecting to have a stable agricultural performance. We are seeing favourable weather conditions across the country that will favour the performance of the agricultural sector. As a House, we have continued to appropriate resources to fund fertiliser subsidies. In the last Supplementary Budget we just passed, I want to confirm that the House appropriated about Ksh10 billion to fund the fertiliser subsidies to help us grow the agricultural performance. These factors are projected to help us to grow the economy even better."
},
{
"id": 1550591,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1550591/?format=api",
"text_counter": 522,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Alego Usonga, ODM",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Samuel Atandi",
"speaker": null,
"content": "Other factors projected to help us grow the economy include the strong performance of the construction sector. As we are aware, the construction sector did not do well in the first half because most of our contractors were not on site. Most of them are back on site, so the sector will see robust improvement. The other sector that we project will help us improve our economy this year is tourism. The peace and tranquillity created following the formation of the broad-based Government will give us results in the tourism sector. The other sector that will also help us is the housing sector. The Affordable Housing Programme, one of the biggest BETA programmes in this country, is doing extremely well. Coupled with the lowering of interest rates, we also see that the private sector will increase its investments in the housing sector. We cannot leave behind the services sector, which is also projected to grow heavily and help us improve our economy, especially the reforms that have been instituted in the Information and Communications Technology sector. These reforms will collectively help ensure that our economy is up at the projected rate of 5.3 per cent. Hon. Temporary Speaker, let me take you through the fiscal situation of our country. Over the years, we have been over-projecting our revenues when making budgets. This has given us a lot of problems because, in the end, we normally have to resort to borrowing to fill the gaps when there is revenue underperformance. For example, in the last Financial Year 2023/2024, we projected to raise Ksh2.57 trillion in ordinary revenue. At the end of the year, we had a shortfall of about Ksh170 billion. As a consequence, we were able to borrow about Ksh160 billion to fill that gap. The continuous over-projection of revenue is something that this House must address, but we do not have an option. Going forward, this economy is not going to rely on credit. As you are aware of what is happening in the global market, the multilateral and bilateral environment is not conducive for continuous borrowing, and we do not have sufficient fiscal space to continue to pile more credit. There are many avenues that we propose to help this economy to grow revenues. Let me repeat that going forward, it is not going to be easy for us to raise revenue through more taxes. Introducing more taxes is not going to help us. It is not going to be feasible, and that is an area - I would like to caution that going forward - will not work. There are areas that we should explore as a House. One of the areas we need to explore as a House is that we lose a lot of revenues in tax expenditures. For example, we project that the tax expenditures on VAT alone will constitute about 2 per cent of our GDP, which is about Ksh300 billion. This is money that, if we were able to save, would help us raise additional revenues. The size of our economy and the revenue we collect do not match because an economy as big as ours should collect upwards of 20 per cent of our GDP as our ordinary revenue. However, today, we are only collecting about 15 per cent. If you compare this with South Africa, they are collecting 25 per cent of its GDP as The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}
]
}