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{
    "id": 1532478,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1532478/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 4731,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Tinderet, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Julius Melly",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Speaker. I know our Muslim brothers have Iftar celebrations. I rise to support this Supplementary Estimates II. The Bill takes into consideration the Medium-Term Debt Management Strategy, ensuring that spending is reduced and does not go against debt management in the country. I want to point out several issues. More important is what the Supplementary Estimates took into consideration. The issues of importance include the pensions of retirees. As much as retirees served this country with dignity, commitment, and dedication, many of them have problems in their retirement. They are unable to pay medical bills, school fees, and assist their family members. They cannot even afford to buy bread or put food on the table, yet they served this country for 30 to 40 years. This is when pensions should be the first charge in all our payments. We need to know that the Government is planning immediately. I ask the National Treasury to put a lot of emphasis on the State Department of Planning and Economic Development. This country will have a problem if we cannot plan or know how much of the money we collect is supposed to go to retirees, debts, development and service provision. Retirees should be the first people to be considered. A majority of Members here are actually in their 50s or 60s. Some are even more senior. I am saying so because even the young will retire into problems as they leave this House if we do not make a plan. I call on us to ensure that critical considerations come into play and that we do not place cuts that injure certain programmes, projects, and government services when the National Treasury prepares the Budget or when we prepare Supplementary Budgets every other time. Secondly, the Budget speaks to several cuts that at times injure the overall growth of the economy. We need to consider certain areas and know why we make cuts. Let me put pending bills into consideration. For example, the Government signed and awarded contracts for 17 Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) projects. However, the money has not been provided in this Supplementary Budget. First, this means the Government will get into Court litigations and receive much interest. In fact, the Government will lose much because they have gone against contractual obligations. In trying to develop Supplementary Budgets, we really need to know the reason we bring them. What will contractors do if 52 TVET institutions do not have the money yet, and the ministry awarded contracts to them? These contractors owe suppliers. They have workers and individuals who depend on them. If this money is paid to them, it will spur the economy of that area and enable the young people who could have worked in these projects the power to purchase, buy and use resources. Having non-strategic and uninformed budget cuts is quite wrong. This brings us to planning. I emphasise the aspect of planning in every institution, more importantly in this country. We should plan the whole hog from feasibility studies to completion whenever we allocate resources and try to bring into place a project or a programme. That is so that we do not have ad-hoc financing and cuts to the extent that projects stall. On education and training, the Budget had a provision for capitation to schools that is insufficient. Out of the Ksh22,000 we allocated to schools, the money withheld at the 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."
}