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{
    "id": 1451110,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1451110/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 4494,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Starehe, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Amos Maina",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13283,
        "legal_name": "Charles Kanyi Njagua",
        "slug": "charles-kanyi-njagua"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Speaker, for this opportunity to weigh in on this matter. From the outset, I congratulate the Chairman of the Budget and Appropriations Committee for the recommendations on the budgetary cuts. This has resulted from the agitation that the public meted on us, as Parliament and the Government as a whole. It is now time we should think about the principle of the three arms of Government, that is, the Legislature, the Executive and the Judiciary. The view of the public is that our arm of Government is performing dismally and is purportedly being controlled by the Executive, which we should be overseeing. That is an issue that we should bring to the Floor of the House and discuss what our role as Parliament is. This is because we seem to have been overridden by the Executive in our mandate to oversee it. Some of the areas in which budgetary cuts have been effected are issues that had been raised by the public and were addressed by the Executive. Issues of the offices of the First Lady, Second lady and the office of the wife of the Prime Cabinet Secretary were raised by the public and were addressed by the Executive. They are issues that we, as Parliament, should have looked into before they got to the public glare. We have also missed on some of the priorities on the budget cuts. Kenyans are saying that there is a big loophole in the expenses made by the Government and State officers. The people are addressing the giant issue of corruption. They are saying that those are the areas in which we should have budgetary cuts. But, it is very shameful that because we did not pass the Finance Bill, now we have resulted to cutting budgets for very critical areas. The Chairman of the Departmental Committee on Health has just stated that there is a machine that was supposed to be bought by KNH that has to now be foregone, but there are people still earning hefty allowances. Purchase of such crucial machines has been affected by the dropping of the Finance Bill. These are the issues that we should address as Parliament. We need to prioritise what Kenyans need. We have to do budgetary cuts in areas that Kenyans feel are not urgent; not the critical areas I have mentioned. The second thing is the issue of Regional Development Authorities (RDAs) and the duplication of duties among very many Government agencies. It is high time that, in our various committees we identified the many agencies that tend to duplicate duties. People earn so much money doing the same thing in the same way. This is why I agree with the Chairman of the Budget and Appropriations Committee when he talks about having different engineers from all roads departments in a certain constituency earning money for the same work. These are some of the areas that we should look at. After the general election, the Governor of Kisii County, Simba Arati, discovered a huge number of ghost workers in the county. I believe if such a small county as Kisii had so many ghost workers, it is time to audit all Government employees so that we can know which employees are duplicating tasks. This will help us address the issue of money going into the wrong hands. We need to also address the giant element in our budget, that is, recurrent expenditure. We need to see how productive it is. Are we getting equal value in return for this money we spend on salaries? That way, we can know where to cut on this budget. We also have the issue of pending 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."
}