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"id": 1051961,
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"speaker_name": "Sen. Were",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir. I congratulate you for maintaining the Swahili Language in your sessions. I have read the Budget Policy Statement (BPS), and it has indicated that there was a 0.6 per cent economic growth in 2020, down from 5.4 per cent in 2019, mainly because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It has also said that revenue dropped by 12.9 per cent, compared to a growth of 17.1 per cent in December, 2019. This is also explained by the COVID-19 pandemic which contributed to this miserable performance. Going through the statement, however, there is very little support in terms of policy to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) that form 80 per cent of the economy, provide 80 per cent of the jobs in the country, and were the most affected by COVID-19. It, therefore, begs the question whether the drafters of this policy were really serious about growing the economy and working hard to bring SMEs into the tax bracket. There is very little support. The same policy statement goes ahead to put the leased medical equipment as a conditional grant to counties, or a specific amount of money in support of counties in addition to the Kshs370 billion equitable share. You will remember that in this House, we had issues with this Medical Equipment Scheme, infamously known as MES. The issues that we raised in our various reports here have not been taken into consideration. The best that should have happened in terms of policy is that we retain MES, just to provide maintenance or operational support to our county health facilities, and not to buy new equipment. In various reports here, we got information that certain equipment has never been used by counties for various reasons like the set-up of infrastructure or power. For us to give more money to this scheme, which we established that is a conduit for corruption, instead of just providing maintenance and operational funds for this scheme, is a slap on the face of this House, including the National Assembly. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, the policy statement also goes ahead to say that they have removed conditional grants, and we now have unconditional grants under the equitable share of Kshs370 billion. However, conditional grants were very important, because they provided some ring-fencing of certain funds, especially funds to the health sector that were basically available for corruption or misappropriation. There used to be conditional grants to village polytechnics and to many other issues. It has not told us that functions that those the conditional grants that were given to were achieved and, therefore, not necessary. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, when we talked about increasing of funds to counties in our revenue allocation formula, we wanted the reduction of the 85 per cent The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}