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{
    "id": 1456506,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1456506/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 3896,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Tetu, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Geoffrey Wandeto",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to contribute and support these Supplementary Estimates. As a country, we are in very interesting times because, for the first time, matters of economy and governance are taking centre-stage. This is something that we have not had in a long time. It is good that we are relooking at our expenditure, how we raise funds and finance the governance of this country. I would like to start by calling out the National Treasury because some of the problems that we have found ourselves in may be attributed to the lack of thoroughness that we have exhibited in how we have prepared the different financial documents, either budgets or appropriations. Without pre-empting debate on the individual who has been nominated to take charge of the National Treasury, I want to state that it is important that we get the best brains so that we can deal with some of the challenges that we have faced with the documents that have been rejected by the public and have put us on the spot as Members of this House. We must perform better in future in terms of our budget and appropriations preparations. Having said that, even as we try to exercise different austerity measures and juggle with the minimal resources that we have and move them around to satisfy the different needs in our country, it is important that we continue and even up the ante on the war on corruption and wastage. We sometimes talk about austerity, but then realise that the only austerity we achieved is by cutting down or reducing funding to important programmes. But the money that gets lost through wastage and corruption remains the same. As some of the people have said here, we do not just need to look at the national Government, but also further down to the county governments. If we do not win the war on corruption, we will continue to talk about austerity and not raising enough resources for a long time without achieving any meaningful progress. It is important that we also create a lean Government; one that is small enough to meet the needs of the people, but big enough to execute the mandate that it has been given. I personally believe that the Government has no business being in business, and that is why I support the President’s proposal that some parastatals should be merged or wound up. We have over 350 parastatals in this country; some of them have duplicated functions, while others can barely survive without getting the annual budgetary support from the National Treasury. 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."
}