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{
    "id": 102848,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/102848/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 245,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Kenyatta",
    "speaker_title": "The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 168,
        "legal_name": "Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta",
        "slug": "uhuru-kenyatta"
    },
    "content": " Thank you very much, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir. I want to thank all my colleagues for the contributions that they have made. From the outset, I want to assure them that it is the intention of Treasury and Government to ensure that we fully implement the new fiscal law. This is the first time, as the Minister for Finance, where we have actually operated on the basis of the new Fiscal Management Act. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, a number of issues that have been raised are issues that, as Treasury, we have taken into account. There was the issue of the allocation to the agricultural sector. Agriculture is a very key part of our economy. There is need for us to be able to look at agriculture from its broad perspective. Agriculture incorporates the Ministry of Livestock. It also has a component of irrigation, under the Ministry of Water and Irrigation. Agriculture is also a part of regional development. So, when we talk about the share of agriculture, we should not look at it from a narrow sense of the Ministry of Agriculture, but rather, the overall perspective of the entire sector, which is inclusive of some of those areas that I have mentioned. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, there were concerns raised also about equity, beginning with last year’s Budget. As the Government, we have tried to move towards addressing ourselves to that issue of equity to ensure that we have equitable growth in our country. It should not just be growth, but growth that touches and affects every part of our country. There were issues that were also raised with regard to our debt management. I think Kenya should hold her head up in pride in terms of our ability to manage our debts. Over the last six or seven years, we have been in a position where we have reduced our national debt from a high of 60 percent to around 40 percent of the GDP, which is the current prevailing situation. At the Treasury, we keep a very close eye to it to ensure that our debt continues to be sustainable. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, there were issues that were raised with regard to payment of salaries. We recognize that our teachers and civil servants are all important players in terms of our country’s economic development. As hon. Members have already noted in other contributions, there is need for us to be careful that as we grow our recurrent expenditure, it is not at the expense of our development expenditure. That is why we are trying to reduce unproductive expenditure in order to increase our development expenditure. As we reduce the unproductive expenditure, we should also be able to increase fiscal space to be able to accommodate higher and better pay. One thing that, as a nation, we need to be able to keep a very sharp eye on is to ensure that as we look at our salaries, we also do not get into a situation where we get to over-price ourselves as an economy. As we talk of salaries, it is also important to note the actions taken by the Government to also reduce interest rates, and the level of inflation. All these need to be taken into account as we go forward. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we do know that we had a package agreed on with our teachers in the last financial year. We did agree that as the economy improves, as we get to higher rates of growth, we should be able to pay the whole salary agreement package that we had with the Kenya National Union of Teachers. But 2.5"
}