Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 1081383,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1081383/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 624,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Funyula, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. (Dr.) Wilberforce Oundo",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13331,
        "legal_name": "Wilberforce Ojiambo Oundo",
        "slug": "wilberforce-ojiambo-oundo-2"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, for giving me this opportunity. I stand here to support and comment on the Report before us made pursuant to Article 223 of the Constitution of Kenya. The Article provides that the Government can spend money and come to Parliament to seek approval. It also provides that no single time should the Government spend more than 10 per cent of what had been appropriated in the main Appropriations Bill. I do believe the framers of the Constitution and the old Constitution contemplated at one time or another we would have changes in the economy and in revenue collection that would necessitate the revision of the Budget. It is common practice everywhere that budgets are revised along the line to accommodate emerging issues in the market. However, it reeks of laziness and smacks of lack of capacity in the various departments that, at any single time, we have a supplementary budget this late in the day. We have had Covid-19 with us for some time. We have had so many depressions and dips in world economy over the years. I would imagine, from where I stand as I represent of the people of Funyula that the mandarins at the National Treasury should have been in a position to develop scenarios that would have allowed them to come up with a more or less reliable and dependable forecast by the time we were passing the Budget in June last year. Covid-19 was with us by then and it was possible to make those projections. Coming at this time, it is probably too much theory or too much knowledge that the institutional frameworks do not allow the economists and planners in the Ministry to put in place viable financial interventions. Emerging from the Report of the Committee are basically two or three things. One, reduction due to low absorption as a result of late release of Exchequer. Two, inadequate collection of revenue and the A-in-A provision. Third, lack of counterpart funds for donor-funded projects. This really suggests something is seriously wrong somewhere, either from the basic principles of management or basic accounting and financial reporting. Is it deliberate or by design that there is no Exchequer? And it would seem this particular case of lack of Exchequer is directed to certain Departments and Ministries and not others. Is it a question of a dysfunctional Government that does not seem to understand how to balance expenditure vis-à-vis its revenue? As much as there has been Covid-19 and, obviously, the projected revenue cannot be met and the Government has borrowed left, right and centre, it would have made sense that these massive reductions in development and recurrent expenditures being directed to certain Departments should not have happened. If there was a reduction, it should have cut across entire sectors of the Government. Secondly, there is a recurring theme. The Committee picked it up during the consideration of Supplementary Estimates I and they have picked it up again, but without any concrete action. Has the Committee turned into a barking dog by just issuing empty threats that it has no capacity to follow up? There is no demonstration that the Treasury consulted MDAs. As we sit here, there is a stalemate between KIRDI and the State Department of Industrialisation and the State Department of Enterprise Development. This lack of coordination sincerely indicates there is something seriously wrong with the management of financial affairs of this country. Indeed, we must style up and start doing things in a more organised way."
}