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{
    "id": 1545135,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1545135/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 185,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Oketch Gicheru",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, it seems that we were supposed to go to the other side where probably there will be some stones. However, I am glad you have come to me. I am certainly not a stone and I have heard about what Sen. (Dr.) Oburu has said. I am going to contribute more to what he said. The Mid-Term Debt Management Strategy (MTDS) is fundamental to budget making. I do not know why we are losing the script as a House to the extent that we can pass a Budget Policy Statement (BPS) before we pass MTDS. The BPS gives us a focus on what the Government wants to raise in the coming financial year. It gives us a projection. For instance, the BPS for this year has given us a projection that is going to inform the Finance Bill that we want to raise about Kshs4.3 trillion. There are gaps on where we are going to raise this money from. Therefore, where our ordinary revenue cannot help us raise that money, then it fundamentally means that we have to borrow. When we have to borrow, this is the suggestion that then comes with the MTDS. Ordinarily, what we are passing here forms a foundation for passing the BPS. It forms a foundation for which as a House and as Parliament, we can take control over the limits with which the Government can borrow. This is not just my wisdom or the wisdom of the Committee but also of our laws. The Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) Section 33, CAP 412A, requires that we look at the MTDS, so that we can come up with a legal framework from which the Government must think about a sustainable way of raising money. It is not only about the sustainable ways of raising money but also to look at the debt portfolio in such a way that it is going to inform what goes and what does not go into the BPS. This is in terms of the fiscal discipline of the Government. I dare say, and I am not a prophet of doom, that if we continue this management between the MDTS and the BPS, we might wake up in the next financial year with another Gen Z protest. We are going to be forced to have a debt management strategy in the middle of a crisis, and then we are going to start talking about fiscal consolidation. This is not something that we must take lightly as a Parliament. Through what we have proposed here from the Committee of Finance and Budget that I sit in, Parliament must come back and take control of the debt management in this country."
}