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{
    "id": 1250585,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1250585/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 1683,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Teso South, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Mary Emaase",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "We all know that during the campaigns, the President went around the country and promised Kenyans what he was going to do. Further, he has continued to visit parts of the country to give promises. He has visited many parts of this country, including Busia County. Whenever we get the platform to speak when the President is in our regions, we tell him what we want done, for example, the construction of roads; equipping and upgrading of hospitals; disbursement of money for security in the northern region; and, mitigation of floods. This Budget speaks and resonates with the aspirations of Kenyans. It seeks to address the challenges Kenyans are facing and meet the obligations of the nation. As the Budget and Appropriations Committee, which has mandate in the Constitution, we travelled to most parts of Kenya to seek the opinions of the people—their views about what they expect and want from the Government to be factored in this Budget. After doing that exercise, I want to assure you, Hon. Members, that we have also factored the concerns of members of the public in the processing of this Budget. However, I want to clarify the difference. We cannot talk about the Budget without referring to finance. This is an equation. Basically, as Budget distributes the money, another arm has to look for this money. It has to tell us where the money is coming from and that is the finance aspect. That is why the Finance Bill keeps coming up. Revenue has to be generated so that the Budget arm of the equation does the distribution. Money that we propose to distribute must be raised. This money is raised through taxes or donors. We might get some donor funding from some friendly countries. I want to speak a little about the deficit. It has already been alluded that we have about Ksh718 billion budget deficit. If you look at the Budget in totality, you will realise that what has been presented to us by the National Treasury is about Ksh3.599 trillion. But, as you all know the work of the Budget and Appropriations Committee is to review, interrogate, and in certain cases, in the interest of equity and many other factors, make some adjustments. The total Budget as proposed by the Budget and Appropriations Committee is Ksh3.680 trillion. If you look at the revenue, excluding grants, you will find that we are at Ksh2.893 trillion, but including grants it is Ksh2.935 trillion. We have a deficit of about Ksh663 billion but with proposals by Budget and Appropriations Committee, we are at Ksh718 billion. We have the deficit and it has to be financed, whichever way you look at it. It can be financed by borrowing internally or externally or sometimes by a mix of the two for us to be able to generate revenue to finance our Budget. Hon. Members, we also need to remember that we have received a lot of pressure from Kenyans. We need to be cautious on the manner in which we are going to borrow or the trends we set with respect to borrowing so that we do not burden future generations with a lot of debts. We are also reminded every day by Kenyans about the spiralling cost of living. We are 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."
}