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{
    "id": 1054680,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1054680/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 278,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Suba South, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. John Mbadi",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 110,
        "legal_name": "John Mbadi Ng'ong'o",
        "slug": "john-mbadi"
    },
    "content": "Something else we need to talk about is the projection of revenue. The Government is projecting to collect Kshs1.7756 trillion. How realistic is this. This is a question that the Budget and Appropriations Committee is concerned about. Chances are that we are not likely to collect beyond Kshs1.5 trillion this financial year. This means there will be a shortfall of over Kshs200 billion. This will be shouldered by the national Government which is remaining with Kshs1.39 trillion. If you take into consideration the possible revenue shortfall, then you are going to collect not more than Kshs1.1 trillion. This is the amount we will spend in paying loans, interest on loans and meeting all Consolidated Fund services requests, which we know is not cheap. Again, we will pay salaries. By the end of the day, chances are very high that we will end up borrowing money to meet recurrent expenditure. This is not very good for this country. This is something we have talked about and we must repeat. There is need for the Executive and more particularly the National Treasury, which has been tasked with the responsibility of managing our economy, to ensure that economic growth is stimulated. They can only do this by focusing a lot more on the most critical sectors of our economy. The Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have been talked about, but we also need to stimulate demand. We need to have money put into economic stimulus projects; money that would go to people who will spend it. If you want to stimulate economic growth, take money to those who want to spend it, not people who will receive it and keep it. We need to take money to the grassroots. That is why I support the initiative of putting money in projects that are in the rural areas. I do not understand why the National Treasury has a problem with the National Government Constituencies Development Fund (NG-CDF). In fact, we should have more stimulus packages going directly to the grassroots to stimulate growth. If counties were utilising the resources effectively, we would have more invigorated economic activities in the villages. This would help us realise more revenue. But we know what is happening in our counties. I think something needs to be done in terms of holding the county managers to account. Something I want to talk about regards the Government’s borrowing strategy. I am sure this House is aware of reports that have come out from the media that the Kenya Government is planning to get Eurobond loans. That they will commission markets to borrow money. I want to say, as a Member of the Budget and Appropriations Committee, that if this is the case, then it will be unfortunate. The information we have, which is on record from the National Treasury, is that they are not likely to borrow commercial loans. This is not in the plan. There is information that our country is planning to borrow money from the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund 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."
}