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    "id": 1258822,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1258822/?format=api",
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    "content": "estimate – and probably it is deliberate. They under-estimate their A-in-A at the point of making a Budget, like the one we are considering for the 2023/2024 Financial Year. That is so that they may have a surplus and request authority to expend it as we come to the close of the year. Let me talk about the Budget we are making, because that is what is rife in our minds. I do not want to reference the Supplementary Estimates we are making so that I can make the point to Members. Out of the Ksh3.679 trillion we anticipate to have as revenue, A-in-A is the third other source of revenue after deficit, when we have Ksh2.57 trillion as ordinary revenue. Out of that Ksh3.679 trillion, we have budgeted for an A-in-A of Ksh347 billion. The point I am trying to drive home is that this is a very far-reaching and important revenue stream for the Government. Just for members of the public who are struggling to understand A-in-A, it is the money we pay when we get some premium Government services. Especially those that are not pure public goods and are expended for free. When taking a passport, for example, the amount of money you pay to the Department of Immigration Services constitutes A-in-A. When a student at a public university pays school fees, which is revenue for a public institution, that also constitutes A-in-A. As we do the main Budget, a majority of those public institutions under-estimate the amount of money they could be receiving; and as I said before, probably deliberately. As we progress within a financial year, all they have to do is ask the National Treasury for authority to spend that money. We wrote in our Report that we will be basing projections of A-in-A not on what is proposed by the MDAs, but on monies collected as A-in-A by the last Supplementary Estimates considered by this House. If we do that, we will move closer to the reality of the actual A-in-A we collect as a Government. We also looked at the affected GoK-funded projects. I assure this House that we reversed most of that amount because it was very marginal. Out of the Ksh34 billion under consideration, GoK-funded development expenditure intended to be cut was just around Ksh2 billion, which we were able to reverse. Some of them were small water projects, while others are just the kind of community projects in which Members should have a lot of interest. We reversed most of those decisions because we think the National Treasury is more liquid than it was when they tabled those Supplementary Estimates. One thing we have noted that we must be considering doing is that, as you look at those Supplementary Estimates and the reason they come, the first step to getting a solution is to understand the reality. The reason we usually have Supplementary Estimates II, not just this year but even in previous years, is to align the revenue and expenditure sides of the Government. Fortunately or unfortunately, this alignment portends to cut expenditure. That is because we are most of the time optimistic in projecting our revenues. That is why even the entire arithmetic of those Supplementary Estimates is a cut of Ksh24 billion. The Budget and Appropriations Committee, and I hope also this House, need to have very robust revenue raising measures as we buy into the idea. As we move forward in the main Budget of the 2023/2024 Financial Year, what we did to avoid this kind of cut in future was not only to enhance tax collection from the same people that pay, but also allocating monies that will expand our economy by netting people who are now not active participants in the economy to become participants in the growth of the economy and, consequently, become payers of tax. I said that is what we did as we moved the Report for the main Budget. It is important - and I repeat - because any other Supplementary Estimates will affect the 2023/2024 Financial Year. We looked at the primary production of our economy. The Budget and Appropriations Committee segregated our economy into three parts. We looked at the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as the number one primary production - agriculture, mining, fisheries, forestry and everything else that is primary in nature. There is a paradox. This primary production constitutes 18.2 per cent of our GDP. I will explain the paradox as I proceed. We zoomed in on the industry, which is secondary production. It currently constitutes around 16.8 per cent of 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."
}