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{
    "id": 1442021,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1442021/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 119,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Molo, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Kuria Kimani",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Hon. Speaker, I rise before you today with a sense of gratitude and appreciation for the opportunity to speak to this greatly esteemed August House. The Departmental Committee on Finance and National Planning has fulfilled its mandate as outlined in Standing Order 245, by examining and assessing the Finance Bill of 2024. The procedure commenced with a comprehensive briefing on the Bill's substance, followed by interactions with diverse stakeholders who shared their viewpoints. Subsequently, the Committee carefully deliberated upon the stakeholder's comments vis-a-vis the provisions of the Bill. I greatly thank members of the public, especially the ones who appeared before the Departmental Committee as stakeholders and those who came for a public hearing at KICC and gave us very insightful views that have improved the report on the Finance Bill of 2024. Although these people breached the Data Protection Act by sharing our numbers with Kenyans, I thank the Kenyans who called us and wrote to us through SMS. Some were generous enough to send us Ksh1, Ksh2 and Ksh10 to confirm whether our numbers were authentic. I have written to the Clerk of the National Assembly for guidance on what to do with the Ksh168,000 that has been sent to my M-Pesa. This is because receiving these gifts from members of the public is against the laws of this Republic. Later, I will be seeking your guidance on what to do with the money because I tried reversing the Ksh1 and Ksh2 transactions but it was impossible because it accumulated to hundreds of thousands. I thank Kenyans for their generosity and tell them that their views are well received. I would like to draw your attention to an important issue concerning Kenyan’s tax revenue collection. Over the past decade, our tax revenue as a share of GDP has remained stagnant at approximately 15 per cent. This stagnation is a cause for concern the country needs to develop favourable tax measures to balance between relying on our socio-resource mobilisation and depending on debt. This Bill proposes to raise a total of Khs346 billion to support the expenditures that will be passed by this House through the Appropriations Bill. Notably, this expenditure is going to lead to the highest allocation ever to county governments at Ksh401 billion. This is the first time the allocation to counties, through equitable shares, has exceeded the Ksh400 billion mark. As this House debates raising revenue for this country, I encourage our Hon. Members in the Senate, our county assemblies and our county governments to also prioritise ways of raising own-source revenue. I specifically loud Embu, Murang'a and Nakuru counties that have exceeded their own-source revenue share. Once counties generate their own-source revenue, it reduces pressure on the national Government to collect revenues for conducting county functions through the equitable share. In comparison with African countries' tax revenue as a percentage of GDP, Botswana is at 24 per cent, Mauritius at 18 per cent and Zambia at 17 per cent. Kenya is lying behind with a tax revenue collection of 14.1 per cent as of 2022. These countries have managed to achieve higher tax revenue collection rates which highlights the 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."
}