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{
    "id": 1134375,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1134375/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 181,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. (Eng.) Hargura",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 827,
        "legal_name": "Godana Hargura",
        "slug": "godana-hargura"
    },
    "content": "Madam Deputy Speaker, if you look at the budget, the Report says that there is a reduction in the contribution of export to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This means that we are concentrating more on consumption than production. The argument has been that we can raise the budget and finance the sections of this Government which will generate more income, but it is all consumption and going to Government departments and sectors which consume. Therefore, there is no increase in production and benefit from it. The clear issue here in this Report is that high domestic borrowing will affect access of local businesses to credit because banks will favour lending the Government than the local businesses. This means there will be less capital available to the local investors to improve the economy. What the Government is doing is against the idea of improving the economy in the first place. The other one is the issue of the high budget deficit of about Kshs1.16 billion, which will result in more borrowing, resulting in more taxation. We do not intend to put more pressure on Kenyans because they are the most taxed people. The other issue that the Committee has raised is on county allocations, where the BPS talks of 370 billion, which is the same as last year’s allocation. Last year, through the effort of each and every Member of this House, we made sure that we secured an additional Kshs50 billion for the counties, from Kshs316 billion to Kshs370 billion. However, somebody somewhere seems to be punishing the counties because of the concessions this House got from them. If the budget cannot be increased to the counties, that means it will be less because of inflation not being taken into account. Therefore, counties will get less and devolution will suffer considering that the budget has increased."
}