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{
    "id": 1431479,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1431479/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 3835,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Nominated, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. John Mbadi",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 110,
        "legal_name": "John Mbadi Ng'ong'o",
        "slug": "john-mbadi"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Speaker. Let me also make my contributions on this Motion before us on the Supplementary Budget II. I know this is a very difficult time for the Budget and Appropriations Committee. I congratulate the Committee, which is led by Hon. Ndindi Nyoro, for scaling the stairs and chewing gum at the same time. This is the time that they not only consider Budget Estimates II, but also the main Budget Estimates alongside other very important Bills like the County Allocation of Revenue Bill and the Division of Revenue Allocation Bill. Having said that, I want to say the following. One is that even though we say because of economic realities, that is why we are cutting the Budget, the truth of the matter is that we have deliberately, as a country, for years now, been untruthful in our budgeting process. I say so because the International Monetary Fund (IMF) conditionalities force the Government of Kenya to mislead the public on the projected revenue collection. There is no single time, as a country, that we have been realistic in our revenue projections. We use projected ordinary revenue as a balancing figure. What we do, as a country, is to project expenditure. After projecting expenditure, we then decide how much we will get from external and domestic borrowing. We lump the remaining amount into the projected revenue. That is dishonest. The IMF also stands accused of participating in this dishonesty, agreeing with Kenya and allowing it to misreport its budgets. We are saying that the Budget is being cut by Ksh24 billion. Hon. Temporary Speaker, I am saying this because I know you also sit on the Budget and Appropriations Committee. Yes, we are cutting the Budget by Ksh24 billion, but where is the cut? The cut is on the development expenditure of Ksh75 billion, and there is an increase in recurrent expenditure of Khs51 billion. What is the justification for this? When we cut the development budget, we simply do not grow the economy. So, when we cut the Budget for this year, we affect the following year because the economic growth for the present financial year is supposed to help and influence what is supposed to happen in the economy in the subsequent financial year. It is not right to always and continuously reduce our development expenditure at the expense of recurrent expenditure. As a House, we are being dishonest. We continue to complain in every cycle about misuse of Article 223 of the Constitution, but we do nothing about it. In fact, we help the Executive to perpetuate this vice. I have proposed legislation in this House to streamline and bring a statute to actualise Article 223 because it is too general – it is a blank cheque – that we give the Executive, particularly the National Treasury, to misuse. We use Article 223 even to buy pieces of land as we did with the Ruaraka land. That can never be an emergency. When I 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."
}