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{
    "id": 1459651,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1459651/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 273,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kitui Central, WDM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. (Dr) Makali Mulu",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "and pensionable terms. I want to encourage them that once this Supplementary Appropriation Bill becomes an Act of Parliament, they will be employed on permanent and pensionable terms. The second and the most critical issue is that of interns in the Ministry of Health. There has been a lot of lobbying by interns in the health sector for us to factor in resources for their confirmation as permanent and pensionable staff. This Supplementary Appropriation Bill has a provision of Ksh3.8 billion to ensure that interns in the Ministry of Health are also employed on permanent terms. I thought it is important to make that point clear. Another critical issue is Appropriations-in-Aid (A-in-A). After we decided to scale down the budget following the withdrawal of the Finance Bill 2024, many institutions came up with proposals on how to enhance their spending. The entire A-in-A spectrum, as a way of generating resources, needs to be thoroughly scrutinised to establish the potential for each MDA. We need to identify areas where they collect more than they are reporting. There are instances of underreporting, and that is very dangerous. That means some MDAs will have more resources compared to what we have appropriated to them. That will lead to either unnecessary expenditure or expenditure that is not controlled by the National Treasury. Hon. Temporary Speaker, three observations are important as we move into the future. Looking at this Supplementary Appropriations Bill, a lot of money has been reduced in the development budgets. That is where I agree with Hon. Charles Nguna Ngusya. If we cannot carry out economic activities in this country through development budgets, we cannot talk about economic growth. If we cannot talk about economic growth, we cannot talk about employment creation, and other development issues. This is an area we need to consider as a House as we move into the future. How can we ensure that we have more money for development expenditure as opposed to recurrent expenditure? That way, we will be helping the economy to grow. Another critical matter is addressing the budget deficit. Initially, when we started discussing this matter, we said that we would be borrowing about Ksh141 billion. In this Bill, the figure has increased to Ksh170 billion. That says that our appetite for borrowing continues to rise. We have said very many times that public debt is one area we seriously need to discuss and agree on a way forward. For example, the Budget deficit has increased from 3.8 per cent to 4.3 per cent. It is very difficult to develop a country through borrowing. Time has come when we must look at our public debt and ask ourselves what we want as Kenyans. Kenyans out there have told us to borrow less and see how we can use our locally raised resources optimally. Since Kenyans have said they do not want to be taxed more, it means we should come up with a prioritization strategy for expenditure so that at the end of the day we only fund what is core for the good of this country. That way, we will be growing the economy and helping this country. Hon. Temporary Speaker, our colleague and friend, Hon. Mbadi, with whom we have worked on budget matters for a long time, is the man who will be dealing with the Budget going forward. It is not going to be easy for him. We wish him well. He has had very good ideas together with me. Now he has the opportunity to implement what we have been saying should be implemented. I will still be reminding him of what we have been saying every day so that we help this country move to the next level. I appreciate most the fact that we have always agreed that those of us on this side of the House have brains which can help this country. We now want to make sure that we use this brain called ‘Mbadi’ to move Kenya to the next level. I am convinced that he has what it takes to move Kenya to the next level but he has to implement what we have been discussing with him. For him to implement that, he will require political goodwill from the highest office. I plead with the highest 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."
}