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{
    "id": 145872,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/145872/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 146,
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance increased the CDF allocation from Kshs10 billion to Kshs12 billion. However, I want to indicate to this House that he actually short changed the CDF kitty because, normally, we calculate the monies to the CDF using a ratio of 2.5 per cent of the ordinary revenue. In this year’s Budget, the ordinary revenue is Kshs523 billion. When you take 2.5 per cent of it, it requires him to actually give the CDF kitty a sum of Kshs13 billion, but he only allocated it Kshs12 billion. This means that he succeeded, just like in the previous Budget, to allocate less Kshs1 billion to CDF kitty. Of course, I am very sure that he wants to adhere to the law, but we do not want him to continuously break the law. An Act of Parliament requires him to allocate 2.5 per cent of the ordinary revenue to go to the CDF kitty. We, as Members of Parliament, might not complain so much this time, considering that he has removed the burden of building health centres from our shoulders. He has allocated Kshs20 million for construction of health centres. He has also allocated another Kshs30 million for setting up of a centre of excellence in every constituency. We normally use CDF funding for such projects. In the past, Budgets have been excellently presented in this House. However, there has always been a question of implementation. If we are to look at a post-mortem of the Budget of 2008/2009 Financial Year, we will be surprised because enormous resources were unutilised and they were returned to Treasury. In my own estimate, about Kshs100 billion was unutilised and returned to the Treasury. We may want to know why these funds were returned to Treasury. Kenyans are anxious for development. Kenyans are anxious for roads and electricity projects. Why is it that funds are returned to the Treasury? We want him to ensure that during this financial year, he achieves over 95 per cent utilization of the Budget he read here. Otherwise, if he reads an excellent budget, but one year down the line, we find that the absorption rate of the funds is just 60 per cent to 70 per cent, then we will not really achieve much for this country. We are very optimistic that these funds will actually be devolved and come down to the constituency level."
}