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"id": 191047,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/191047/?format=api",
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"speaker_name": "Dr. Eseli",
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"speaker": {
"id": 141,
"legal_name": "David Eseli Simiyu",
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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I rise to support the Motion on the Budget making process. In fact, When I got to this House, I was very surprised to find that we had no say in the making of the Budget. When you meet your constituents out there, they all tell you that they want this or that. They imagine that when you get to Parliament, you participate in the formulation of the Budget. When you get here, you realise that, that is not the case. I do hope that in the course of this year, we will be able to accomplish that mission. When a Budget is prepared elsewhere and brought here for us Parliamentarians to just rubber stamp it, we actually negate the whole point of our representation here, since we spend more than 60 per cent of our time debating the Budget in this House. The way the Budget has been made before, up to this year, is why there is inefficiency, inequity and impunity in this country. It has created inefficiency in the sense that certain Ministries or departments have been allocated funds, but they fail to utilize them mainly because they do not have the capacity to utilize those funds. Yet, they receive those funds and end up returning them to the Treasury or misusing them. In so doing, we end up with inefficiency in the Government system. The current system of formulating the budget has introduced inequity. I think many hon. Members have mentioned why that inequity has come about, in the sense that some of the people deciding what is allocated to what are known, while some are not known. They decide that this will go here and this will go there. Like the Minister for Finance stands here and says Kshs1 million will be allocated to every constituency for football. We are all very happy about that. But what informed that decision? What did he base that decision on, considering that constituencies are not the same geographically or demographically? They are quite different. So, when you allocate Kshs1 million to each constituency, what you are saying is that you actually have a good idea, but you do not know how to implement it and, therefore, you need help. So, in a situation like that, Parliament should be involved. This has gone on and on. For example, you will find that under the Youth Enterprise Development Fund, they allocate Kshs1 Million per constituency where the youth can apply for Kshs50,000 each. Constituencies are not the same. The number of youth in constituencies are different. For example, in my constituency that money only covers about 20 youth groups. So, this kind of budgeting actually introduces inequity in the country. We have usually perpetuated that inequity using this kind of budget formulation method. The other thing that the current budget formulation process does is that it introduces impunity. For very many years Kenyans have suffered at the hands of impunity, where funds have been hidden somewhere in the budget to pay for \"ghost\" projects, Anglo Leasing type of contracts and things that should actually not be paid for. So, the Treasury just ends up leaking money to July 2, 2008 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 1559 unknown people and paying bills that Kenyans are not aware of, because all these are hidden in the budget. So, this way of formulating the budget actually introduces impunity in the country. It has actually led to the country losing a lot of money. This money that would have helped to develop the country has gone into people's pockets instead. So, if we are looking at the future, where we want to have a devolved system and end up with a devolved fund, then the House has to be involved in formulating the budget. However, I will support this move, but with caution. We should remember that the budget is a tool for the ruling party to fulfil its manifesto and ideology. Probably, that is the reason they would have won the election in the first place. The budget is one of the ways the party that would have won elections will use to fulfil its manifesto. So, insisting that the House should have total control might be counter-productive to the party that would have won the elections. So, while I support the Motion, we need to handle it with caution, so that we do not remove that bit from the party that would have won elections, to use the budget to actually push through its manifesto transparently. So, I think if we took that into perspective, we can actually come up with a policy that will help us formulate the budget in a better way. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}