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{
    "id": 1258847,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1258847/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 968,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Funyula, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. (Dr) Ojiambo Oundo",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to contribute to the Supplementary Estimates II for the Financial Year 2022/2023. I must laud the Chair of the Budget and Appropriations Committee for taking us through a basic or elementary lecture on economics and macro-economics. As I have always stated, Supplementary Budget is an epitome of laziness in economic planning. Article 223 was never in any way meant to cover inefficiencies of the planning department and the Executive. It was generally meant to cover cases of emergencies and unforeseen circumstances, like what happened during COVID-19 Pandemic of 2020 and 2021. It baffles anyone who has attended any economic class that the Government cannot, at any given time, precisely project the revenue it is likely to get. This is because the population and people who generate income does not change as much. It behooves the technocrats who are in a better position to clearly — with some element of precision — determine the revenue that will come at hand. If you look at the figures that are being reduced on the capital expenditure side, it is a clear testimony that the system operates to frustrate the implementation of certain projects. Hon. Temporary Speaker, if you listen to principal secretaries, MDAs and many executive technocrats who implement projects, they always tell you that there is this twin tendency where there is donor funding and counter-part funding. The National Treasury will deliberately delay the release of counter-part funding so that they can frustrate that project; and by the time we come to the end of the Financial Year, we have money that we cannot spend, and the National Treasury would obviously use those unorthodox means to recall or recover that money. Secondly, it is also another way of corruption. Many MDAs and State Departments do not have coherent procurement plans and if they do, they are unable to implement because the National Treasury’s releases and disbursements are deliberately delayed so that the only funds that go to those projects are earmarked for looting public funds. We have always argued… I hope Hon. Ndindi Nyoro, being the new kid on the block, will really get out of this old mindset and start talking to the guys in the National Treasury to understand that Members of Parliament are getting fed up with those piecemeal changes to the budget every financial year. If you look at the Schedule attached - and I have not had the benefit of reading the Report in details - we are unable to pick out from which vote-head precisely or from which State Department the reduction has been made. Again, any Kenyan getting hold of this Order Paper would be unable to know where those particular changes have happened. We need to tighten up; and as we have always continuously said; and all in their Reports, be it for the Supplementary I or the Budget Policy Statement (BPS), the Budget and Appropriation Committee has always called upon for a review…"
}