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{
    "id": 1081388,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1081388/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 629,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kilifi North, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Owen Baya",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13373,
        "legal_name": "Owen Yaa Baya",
        "slug": "owen-yaa-baya"
    },
    "content": "That notwithstanding, this Supplementary Estimate has massive reductions in certain departments. One of the departments that has been affected very much is the university section. Having taught in the university and having been a member of the academia, I have seen and understand so many things there. I was part of the university administration and I understand what happens there. We only see capitation for universities in the Estimates, but Treasury never releases money to universities. This National Treasury that we have currently is deliberately killing and stifling universities by denying them capitation. The money is there but it is never spent. When it comes to Supplementary Estimate, that money is swept into other departments where the universities are starved of money. I would like to ask the Leader of the Majority Party here, who was once a member of the Departmental Committee on Education and Research, to stand up for universities in this country. University lecturers, nowadays, do not even get salaries on time. Laboratories in the universities do not even work anymore because there is no capitation. They are not developing. They do not even have hostels. Universities cannot develop hostels. A young girl of 19 years who has just joined university has to go and stay in a small room somewhere far away from the university on her own. That poses great danger and it is because there is no capitation to do development within universities to bring up young people that can help this country. This is something that the Departmental Committee on Education and Research should inquire on: how much money do we give to our universities? This Supplementary Estimate is covering a lot of pending bills but, what is the genesis of pending bills? Is it something that we must continue condoning as a country? Right now, pending bills are becoming a major item in the Budget. Every time we have a Budget Speech here, pending bills are talked about. When the President stands out there to talk, he mentions pending bills. It is now becoming an emerging thematic issue within budgeting in this country. What does that portend? It means mismanagement and misappropriation. It means people are not doing the work that they were given to do. We need to stop this issue of pending bills. You spend and pay. We are killing businesses because of pending bills. Young people who are joining the business world are getting auctioned because they have taken facilities. It is because of pending bills. We need to find a way to fix this problem. We need to start demanding reports from the National Treasury every quarter so that they tell us what it is they are doing with the money we have allocated to them. I have seen the stop light, but allow me to say this: Supplementary Estimate is the wrong way to inform a new budget. Imagine we have just passed the Budget and financial statements in the morning and now we are coming to do a budget for the financial year. Supplementary budgets need to inform the new Budget so that as you plan forward you know… You cannot plan forward and then go back! Indeed, that is what it means to have a Supplementary Estimate. Lastly, there is no absorption rate. Why do we give a lot of money to a Ministry that has a low absorption rate? As if that is not enough, in the next Budget, we give them even more money which they cannot spend. By doing so, we are starving other areas of money. I think it is very important that ministries or state departments that do not spend and have low absorption rate should be denied money. Such money should be given to state departments that can spend money without having not to spend it within…"
}