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{
    "id": 145972,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/145972/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 246,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Kajwang",
    "speaker_title": "The Minister of State for Immigration and Registration of Persons",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 164,
        "legal_name": "Gerald Otieno Kajwang",
        "slug": "otieno-kajwang"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, balanced budgets are not fashionable in the current economic crisis. In fact, people are now talking about economic stimulus and stimulus packages. That is what is now fashionable from Obama, Gordon Brown, Angela Michael to Uhuru. They are all doing it. In fact, capitalist countries said laissez faire are now buying their banks and investing in car-making companies to create or save employment. Nobody is ashamed about this. They are not talking capitalism or socialism, but economic stimulus. That is the language we are talking. What we are staving off is a meltdown and social upheaval. This must come at a cost. The cost of Kshs109 billion is not too high to pay. However, this Budget is not the many other things that have been talked about. It is, definitely, not fiscal devolution. In fact, it is the centre through line Ministries. What is devolution is the Constituencies Development Fund (CDF) and the Local Authorities Transfer Fund (LATF). However, the money that has been given to the line Ministries to fund two schools, one health centre, one fish pond and many other things is not devolution. Of course, the name “constituency” has been thrown in to make it attractive and sexy, but, definitely, it is not devolution. This is because the same line Ministries are the bottlenecks to growth and development. I hear the Treasury Mandarins, and the word “mandarins” mean “very powerful officials at Treasury”, told Mr. Kenyatta: “Do not raise the CDF allocation because Members of Parliament are corrupt and reckless. Put the money in line Ministries.” What that has amounted to is that in the next financial year, we will find billions of shillings coming back here unused. The employment we wanted to create, the development and growth we wanted to stimulate will not be there because the line Ministries are not in the habit of spending money on development. They are in the habit of spending money where it pays to them. Let us put the money in the CDF. When we first created the CDF here, we were proposing a 5 per cent allocation. The then Minister told us to just wait a moment. He told us to put it at 2.5 per cent and in one year or two when the economy did better, they would raise it to 5 per cent. We have waited for almost ten years now. The CDF allocation is not being increased because that is devolution. It seems that, that is what the Government is resisting. We are allocating Kshs140 billion to deal with many things. We want to deal with roads, rail, ports, broadband and the energy sector. That amount of money is not enough. We will not fund our development through taxes. It has never funded any development. Most development is funded by long-term bonds. Let us create bonds to build a railway line from Mombasa to eastern Congo. Make it profitable and we will invest in it. If we wait for budget allocations to build the"
}