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{
"id": 1456487,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1456487/?format=api",
"text_counter": 3877,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Dagoretti South, UDA",
"speaker_title": "Hon. John Kiarie",
"speaker": null,
"content": " Hon. Speaker, it is a great honour to contribute to this Motion on the First Supplementary Estimates for the Financial Year 2024/2025. I speak as the Chair of the Departmental Committee on Communication, Information and Innovation. Hon. Speaker, we have been given an opportunity to look at the Supplementary Estimates. We, in the communications sector, are running into a big problem, even with the budget cuts that are happening. If you look at the trend of how the cuts were done at the National Treasury, they targeted certain issues. In the attempt to implement austerity measures, the area of communication is greatly affected across the board. Unfortunately, Hon. Speaker, there are ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) in this Government whose sole responsibility is communication. For example, the Department of Broadcast and Telecommunication. In the blanket cuts, that department has been left in a situation where it might go for an entire year and not be able to pay salaries and conduct any developmental issues, because their core business is communication. It is formed in such a way that if blanket cuts are done across the board affecting communication, their core business is greatly affected. Hon. Speaker, I support the Supplementary Estimates as we have done. However, it must be said in this Parliament that the National Treasury ought to change its budgeting regime and the way it does budgeting. The National Treasury has budgeted for MDAs in the same way it has done since 1963. Sectors that have traditionally enjoyed big budgets continue to enjoy inordinately bigger budgets. The traditional sectors that are capital-intensive and infrastructure-intensive have continually enjoyed big budgets. Budgets that probably are even budgeted for corruption. Emerging sectors like telecommunication, innovation and information, were small departments in traditional bigger sectors. For example, the sector of Information, Communication, and Technology (ICT) and digital economy was traditionally a small department within energy. In the mind of the National Treasury, ICT and the digital economy remain a small department within energy. However, if you look at the Bottom-up Economic Transformation Agenda (BETA), the Marshall Plans, the Kenya Digital Superhighway Program, Vision 2030, emerging sectors like ICT and the digital economy might be the place where we can find a solution for the issues that are being canvassed. Even the issues that are being canvassed by Gen. Zs on the streets, they are talking about youth engagement and employment. That employment will not come from the bigger sectors. It will not come from corporate Kenya. Those youths will be meaningfully engaged if Members of this House can institute digital innovation hubs in every ward in this country. It will happen when we make connectivity get to places like Wajir and Mandera counties, and the other far-flung places in this country. Those opportunities will be available when young people can get digital online jobs, where they can go to a digital innovation hub in their village and can be paid in dollars. However, that is the case we find ourselves in, the National Treasury is still budgeting the way it used to in the 1960s. Hon. Speaker, our sectors in the ICT and digital economy have proven that, if you invest Ksh1, you can reap Ksh5 out of that investment. What we are decrying here - and I do stand up as a village crier to say -is that even as we prosecute the First Supplementary Estimates for 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."
}