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"id": 217881,
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Billow",
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"legal_name": "Billow Adan Kerrow",
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"content": "Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the Minister was definitely giving his last Budget. He, therefore, 1870 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES June 19, 2007 made sure that it was very ambitious. We have a Budget where spending far outstrips receipts! The total spending is about Kshs700 billion, yet, the total receipts from revenue, including the Appropriations-In-Aid (A-in-A), is only Kshs428 billion. That leaves a difference of Kshs260 billion. I am saying that one third of this ambitious expenditure, that is included in this Budget, will be financed through empty wallets. It is not money the Minister has received through revenue, but it is the money that he will largely receive from borrowing, debt roll-overs, external borrowed finances, donors and so forth and so on. These are things you will see when we look at the fine prints. Out of the Kshs680 billion, Kshs85 billion will be financed by donors. We are often told that the Budget is not financed by donors, yet, Kshs85 billion is expected to be financed by donors. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, we have domestic borrowing of Kshs34 billion. In last year's Budget, the Minister told us that domestic borrowing was to be Kshs29 billion. By May this year, that figure had gone to Kshs34 billion. We also have commercial borrowing of Kshs20 billion and debt roll-over of Kshs69 billion. In other words, what I am saying is that, out of the Kshs700 billion expenditure, only Kshs428 billion will be financed directly by our resources. We have to live beyond our means and borrow in order to satisfy the growing appetite for spending by this Government. I think it is this over-expenditure or expansionary policy pursued by this Government which is contributing to the high inflation rates. We have to balance. Must we continuously expand expenditure at the risk of having inflation which is killing our people? I think we must be concerned about the common man out there and the effect inflation is having on his or her livelihood. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, in each of the three financial years; 2003/2004, 2004/2005 and 2005/2006, we find that the fiscal deficit has been rising. The Minister says the Budget deficit will be Kshs109 billion. This is the largest deficit ever recorded or presented in this House. He has to tell us that he will borrow. There are so many things hidden in this book. I want hon. Members to read it thoroughly. The financial statements set out clearly how he will finance the Kshs700 billion. You will find that there is a huge amount of borrowing. Anything over and above the Kshs428 billion in revenues, he actually has to borrow. Public debts, which was only Kshs560 billion when this Government took over, is now almost Kshs800 billion. In this financial year alone, the Minister, out of Kshs700 billion, will pay Kshs128 billion to service debts. Out of that Kshs128 billion, Kshs46 billion is just interest on domestic debt alone. Where are we going? We are spending a lot of money and yet our people are starving. They are poor and yet we continue spending and spending and spending. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, out of the Kshs700 billion, Kshs491 or approximately Kshs500 billion is what we call the Recurrent Expenditure. This is known as consumption. Last year, the Economic Survey (ES) indicated that consumption accounted for 75 per cent of the total public expenditure of this Government. It is there in the Economic Survey. Consumption, in other words, the cost of keeping the Government--- The Minister has said that there is going to be fiscal discipline and that, indeed, he is going to contain the growth of total expenditure and domestic expenditure. Those are all quotes from his Speech. In the Economic Survey, we are told that central Government expenditure alone went up by 44 per cent last year when the revenue increased by only 19 per cent. We are living beyond our means and that is contributing to high inflation, which is killing our people. Inflation is making lives difficult for our people and yet the Minister does not seem to address the issue of inflation. Let me leave it at that and go to other issues. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, there are important sectors that this Government identified in the Budget Speech and which we agree with. The six key sectors which have received the highest allocation of the spending. We commend the Government for that, but there are very important sectors for the common man which have been ignored. For example, last year, we passed a policy June 19, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 1871 paper on the Small and Micro-Enterprises (SMEs). That policy paper contained a lot of things the Government will do in that sector, which accounts for 80 per cent of all the jobs in this country. It is the fastest growing part of the economy and yet the Minister comes here and says, \"We are going to give out Kshs400 million to put up a market in Ngara.\" That is all. I think we need to be serious. Those are the sectors in which we need to put more resources! It is time we started providing for specific allocations to assist small-scale farmers for cottage industries and so forth. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, agriculture is another important sector. It accounts for 50 per cent of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP); 26 per cent direct and 24 per cent indirectly. That is 50 per cent of our GDP. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, 50 per cent of whatever he calls revenue, indeed, comes from agriculture. We also know that 80 per cent of our people are in rural areas. They depend on agriculture yet when you come to the Budget, they receive Kshs29 billion. That is less than the additional money my friend in the Ministry of State for Defence was allocated in that Budget. It is even less than the incremental money that was given to the Ministry of State for Defence for spending. We need to invest money in serious sectors of our economy. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, with regard to education, I am happy on the waiver of tuition fees for secondary education and the increase in the number of teachers. This is very important, but it is also time we increased allocation to children. It is important that the Minister should actually set up a time-frame such that in the next three years, the total secondary school fees will have been taken over by the Government so that this year we have a waiver of tuition fees, and next year, the other portion of secondary school education. It is important that we do that. We should be cautious against passing all the savings from the secondary school fees to the tertiary institutions. This is because they are concerned that this Ministry will now increase fees for universities and other colleges. I think that is going to be a disaster. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, we will come to the Printed Estimates, but I want to say that there are some things there that need to be explained. For example, with regard to the Kshs41 billion that the Minister calls \"equity participation in domestic non-financial enterprise\", I think this lumpsum allocation of money is really causing us a problem because we are unable to understand what the money is going to do. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, with those few remarks, I beg to support."
}