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{
    "id": 1015299,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1015299/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 114,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kipipiri, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Amos Kimunya",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 174,
        "legal_name": "Amos Muhinga Kimunya",
        "slug": "amos-kimunya"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Deputy Speaker for this opportunity. From the outset, I congratulate the Budget and Appropriations Committee for a job well done. It has taken the Senate close to two years to do the same. It only took the Budget and Appropriations Committee one weekend to resolve this matter and bring it before the House. They have explained everything, so I will just cover a few things. All this comes from Article 216 of the Constitution that mandates the CRA to make recommendations to the Senate. There was a reason why it was decided that there should be an independent commission that looks at all the issues and guides the Senate. For those of us who went through the constitution-making process, it was assumed that revenue allocation in the past used to be politically motivated and only regions that supported the powers that be would get monies. The CRA was a creation of the mistrust of the populace towards their Government to allocate money. That was obviously before the Jubilee administration came into power. That is a story for another day. The long and short of it is that the CRA scientifically went round and came up with a basis. Certified Public Accountant (CPA) Mbadi has explained that basis in detail. I do not want to get into it. That basis took cognisance of the fact that funds are sent to the counties for two main purposes. One is to provide funding for the delivery of the 14 functions that were devolved to the counties. That refers to the Recurrent Expenditure. Another reason was to develop the countries. There are two components in terms of the formula - the Recurrent Expenditure which is expected to take no more than 70 per cent and Development Expenditure which is supposed to take 30 per cent. In actually working out which parameters would contribute to the 70 per cent and which ones to the 30 per cent, all the parameters that we are talking about were divided into those two groups. This means that for Recurrent Expenditure in terms of health, agriculture, urban households and the basic share, it was assumed that if you add all those parameters, they would amount to 70 per cent. Whatever money is sent based on those parameters would be able to provide for health, agriculture, all the other 12 devolved services and also cater for the urban household based on how many people you have within the urban centres. It will also take care of issues of urban poverty plus a basic share of everyone getting the same. In terms of development, the CRA stated that development is based on the amount of land you are developing. The land parameter goes under development. You are developing to remove poverty. You have land, poverty and the road network. The road network is what interconnects people and helps in the delivery of services. They also added that in terms of development, what is the capacity of each of those counties to raise revenue? A revenue-raising parameter was added and given 2 per cent. When all these money is given to the counties, what is the extent of their fiscal responsibility in terms of the efficiency with which they use the money that has been allocated to them? Two per cent was allocated to that. The Senate, in their wisdom, decided that fiscal responsibility does not matter. Revenue- raising in the counties does not matter. They have removed those two very key parameters. Obviously, we were told that a number of Senators may want to vie for governorship, hence, they do not want to be held responsible for use of the funds and not raising internal revenues. Therefore, they have decided that those two parameters do not matter. It is something that we must put on 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."
}