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{
    "id": 1456529,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1456529/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 3919,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kikuyu, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Kimani Ichung’wah",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "The rejection of the Finance Bill occasioned a deficit of an additional Ksh346 billion. This tells you that without this First Supplementary Budget, it means that the Government of Kenya goes out to borrow the entire Ksh346 billion. Hon. Members will note that this Supplementary Budget is only reducing our Budget by a total of about Ksh146.3 billion. Therefore, there is another gap or a fiscal deficit of an additional Ksh200 billion. Part of this will be covered through additional revenue raising measures and other austerity measures that will be carried on in the course of the financial year. It is important to say this so that Kenyans understand that every Finance Bill that consequently becomes the Finance Act comes to finance Government operations and the budgets for Kenyans. Many Members have lamented that various budgets have been cut. This will happen. The Member for Githunguri complained that the Coffee Cherry Advance Revolving Fund has lost Ksh1 billion. However, she failed to inform coffee farmers that they have an additional Ksh3 billion. They would have got an additional Ksh4 billion this financial year. Hon. Temporary Speaker, she rightly asked – and I do not know whether she was sarcastic - whether dairy farmers are more important than coffee farmers. All farmers in the Republic of Kenya are important. That is why dairy farmers in Githunguri, Kikuyu, Karachuonyo, Bungoma, Kanduyi, Kuresoi South and Kuresoi North will benefit from milk coolers. This is because it is a key promise that this administration promised dairy farmers. We will ensure that there is substantive value addition in the milk value chain. Therefore, within the last Budget that we had just approved, there was no money for milk coolers and driers for maize farmers. We have now made sure that resources are allocated to ensure that we secure the post-harvest losses from our maize farmers and dairy products by having coolers around our country in dairies in almost all our wards. I know we do not have adequate resources - courtesy of the rejection of the Finance Bill, 2024 - to roll out everything that ought to have been rolled out. This morning, I had an engagement with a young girl who keeps sending me messages. She is called Jane who is a student at Mount Kenya University (MKU). She complained that they have no access to university funding. I want to assure Jane and many other university students that the Budget and Appropriations Committee has made sure that under the Differentiated Unit Cost (DUC) and resources that have gone to the Higher Education Loans Board (HELB), no child or student in the university and TVET institutions will lack access to higher education on account of either capitation through DUC, getting loans, and sponsorships or scholarships through HELB. Those are some of the balances that we have done. This means that there will be a give and take within the Supplementary Budget. That is why there are many other areas that we have cut expenditure, part of which might have been critical, but can wait. The Budget is all about prioritising. We must prioritise so that we can ensure that even those who crusaded for the rejection of the Finance Bill 2024 will not suffer. They have opportunities that they will never access. A child who does not access university education today cannot wait for next year or the year after. However, a road in Kikuyu Constituency that was to be constructed in this financial year can wait. Therefore, I want to take this opportunity to ask and plead with Kenyans to be patient. Under these difficult economic times where we give and take, we cannot have our cake and eat it at the same time. If we do not have finances from the Finance Bill, 2024, then a road, dam or another project to be constructed or a hospital here will give way. This will come with the necessary or requisite responsible stewardship of the National Treasury. I believe that among the nominees who have been named today, God willing, if Hon. John Mbadi ends up being in the National Treasury, he has the requisite knowledge. He has sat in this House and he knows. He has been a Member of the Budget and Appropriations Committee when I chaired that Committee. 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."
}