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"id": 222093,
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Oloo-Aringo",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me a chance to continue to move this Bill. Last time, I explained that this particular Bill is divided into nine parts. I explained what is contained in the first three parts. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, Part IV is on Laying, Review, Debate and Approval of the Estimates in the House. This part, for example, sets the date by which the various Estimates must be laid before the House. It also requires the Government of Kenya to comply with, and report the steps it has taken to implement audit recommendations. It certifies the contents of the Fiscal Strategy Report. Lastly, it lays down the procedure by which the National Assembly debates and reviews Estimates. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, as we all know, the Draft Annual Estimates, Supplementary Estimates and the Annual Estimates and the accompanying financial statement are mandatory and must be laid in this House. This Bill specifies when this must be done. In addition, we shall now demand that there be Treasury reports accompanying every statement and Estimate that is laid before this House. This Treasury report will show us the steps that have been taken to implement the audit recommendations. It is no longer going to be a free-for-all. It will not just be making the report, but the Ministry must show how they have complied with the audit report of the National Assembly. There will also be need for Fiscal Strategy Report. These reports are available, but they have never been brought to this House. This Bill, once enacted, will compel that these reports be laid before this House. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the most important thing is that this Bill will alter the procedure for bringing Estimates to this House. For example, once the Estimates are ready, they will be apportioned to the various Departmental Committees of this House. In other words, we will abolish the Committee of Ways and Means and the Committee of Supply. As we know, these committees have remained as toothless rituals and do not add any value to the debate on the Budget. The Estimates will go directly to Departmental Committees which will scrutinise them and consult with the Permanent Secretary of each portfolio. This also means that the guillotine procedure will be scrapped. The guillotine procedure is the most ridiculous thing in our history. The other day, the Minister himself stated in this House that this year, out of more than 35 Ministries, we were only able to scrutinise seven. Obviously, this is a very low figure in a non- performing or poorly-performing economy such as ours. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, most Ministries escaped scrutiny. To seal this loophole, we shall make sure that the Estimates go to the portfolio committees of various Ministries. Therefore, no department or Ministry, not even the National Assembly, will escape scrutiny. Even constitutional offices will come under scrutiny! Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, Part V is about the Budget Committee. Its composition is well known because it is already in place. It has four or five functions, among them are: (i) Coordinate and review all reports of the select committees on the Budget. (ii) To examine all money deals. (iii) To exercise general over-sight of the budget. Before the Budget Committee, we did not have any one committee that could coordinate the 1326 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES May 15, 2007 interrogation of the budget. Now, we have in place a committee that will coordinate the interrogation of the Budget. Similarly, we have the office of fiscal analysis which is the same as the budget office with technical and professional staff who will support Parliament. We have already appointed people of high calibre in this office. They will interact with our colleagues at the Treasury. That will give us the technical backup that we need in order to make our contribution more meaningful. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the functions of this committee are specified. They include. (i) Support the Budget Committee. (ii) Support the select committee in their budget mandate. In other words, all Departmental Committees should approach this office of fiscal analysis for advice and assistance in specialised areas. (iii) To prepare studies of specific subjects. (iv) Provide advice and expertise on budget policies and activities. (v) Synthesize technical financial data and studies into user-friendly briefs for Members of Parliament. In other words, it is this committee that will coordinate our work. It will also assist other committees in arranging, as it were, our working relationships with all civil society groups. In Part VII of this Bill we have introduced Budget Impoundments. It is very significant. Clause 21(1) introduces new definitions. The most important of these is the term \"impounding.\" This is the power of the National Assembly to withhold money from departments that have wilfully and persistently failed to implement all audit recommendations of the National Assembly. In other words, we know that year in, year out, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and the Public Investments Committee (PIC) do a superb job. However, their reports are just put on shelves. Now, there will be a sanction. This will be impoundment. The Bill also explains how this impoundment will work. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, Clause 21(2) allows the National Assembly to impound the withdrawal of specific line items as a vote on account. Section 101 of the Constitution allows departments and Ministries to ask the National Assembly for up to 50 per cent of the amount in the estimates for their operations before the Appropriation Act comes into being. However, most decisions to authorise a vote on account and percentage is at the discretion of the National Assembly. We are saying that Ministries have taken it for granted that they will automatically get 50 per cent of the votes. I want to give a notice now that, in future, this will not be taken for granted. We will scrutinise every Ministry. A Ministry which will wilfully fail to comply with audit reports will not get the 50 per cent. In fact, we can impound their whole vote. We can even give them ten per cent of the vote until they change. This is the sanction that has been lacking. That is what explains why some Ministers have been very arrogant and get away with it. This will not be so, in future. We will pin them down. As I said earlier, it is not Parliament that is answerable to Ministers; it is Ministers who are answerable to Parliament. This is an indication that we will now punish those who do not comply with audit reports. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, Clause 21(3) allows for the impounding of an item or items in a vote for the financial year when the final supply Motions are being voted in the House. However, money impounded can be released if the Minister reports that the errant department has subsequently complied with the necessary audit and proper financial practices. There is now a sanction. They will not get away with it. There is a day I listened to a Minister saying boldly here that he will not even report to the Committee. That will not be the case in the future. We shall deny him. I know that any good President will punish a Minister who does not co-operate with Parliament. No President wants a Minister who cannot pass his Votes in the House. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, there is another side which is of significance to me May 15, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 1327 and I think it is an improvement. Under Clause 22(2) of the Bill, if the National Assembly determines that persistent failure of the department to comply with proper financial management is directly linked to the wilful and persistent conduct of a particular officer, it may impound the salary or benefits of such an officer. We have taken that move because many people squander public resources and leave office, and you cannot trace them anywhere. Now, such people, when they are still in employment, we shall impound their salaries, so that they can feel the pinch. I think that is what civil servants will usually feel most, their salaries. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, what is the significance of these changes? These provisions will seal current loopholes in the Budget process, whereby audits are not linked to the Budget process, of which they are an integral part. This has created a situation in which the Government of Kenya can, recklessly, be wasteful, often enriching a few people in the Government, and yet you cannot pin them down. We shall now punish them. This House must lay that sanction. I am saying that it is long overdue. In Part VIII, the Bill is mainly facilitative. It proposes to oblige public officers to provide information needed by Committees, failure of which they will go to jail. I have seen arrogant Ministers in this country telling us that they will not appear before the Committee as if the House is answerable to a Minister. They are just drunk with power! They, really, get drunk with power. Ministers talking so arrogantly! In future, they will be punished. They will go to jail. So, this House must assert itself. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I am giving a warning here, that Ministers who have been talking about Parliament contemptuously must know that this will not happen again. We have listened to arrogance for long enough. We are representatives of the people. We shall now punish those people. Particularly, officers will be surcharged a fine of Kshs1 million or two years imprisonment. This to me, is something we have been patient with for all this time. What about Part X? The final part of this Bill has two main elements. It provides a link between fiscal management Acts and other financial legislations. It mandates the Minister for Finance, on the recommendation of the Budget Committee, to make subsidiary legislation for the better carrying out of the purposes of this Act. So, clearly, we want regulations to be made by the Minister, but it will be at the request of the Committee, so that the Minister cannot just ignore what the House has passed. It is the Committee which will prepare the regulations for the Minister to gazette, so that we can be able to take this country forward. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the Fiscal Analysis and Appropriations Committee was created by a resolution of this House. The Office of Fiscal Analysis has been created in the Parliamentary Service. It was created by a resolution of the House. This Bill will, however, fortify it in law. There are good reasons for this. We already had, at one time, the Estimates Committee. I was a Member of that Committee for 15 years, but we did not meet even once. When we met once and censured the Government, we were abolished by a telephone call from State House. That is how devastatingly the imperial presidency has destroyed institutions. Just by one telephone call from State House, the Estimates Committee was abolished. That is why this time round, we are fortifying it in an Act of Parliament. Now, to abolish it, the Government will have to come back to this House and convince us why they want it abolished. That is why we are now moving away from the tyranny of the imperial presidency to this more democratic approach, where the Act of Parliament will protect the Committee. The Estimates Committee, therefore, in 1977, was summarily dismissed by the President with no recourse or explanation to this House. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, secondly, when the Fiscal Management Bill becomes law, it will abolish the guillotine procedure and compel the scrutiny of every Ministry and Government Department by the National Assembly. There is no Department or branch that will 1328 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES May 15, 2007 escape; not even the National Assembly. The Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure, therefore, will be apportioned directly to the Departmental Committees, which are now going to be called \"Select Committees\", according to their mandates. The Departmental Committees, therefore, will debate and review the portfolio Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure and submit their Reports to the Budget Committee. The Budget Committee shall debate and review the Reports of the Departmental Committees, harmonise them and submit comments and recommendations to the National Assembly. The Fiscal Management Act, therefore, will impose new Budget procedures that will compel negotiation and reconciliation. This will make the Budget a negotiated document between the Government on one hand and the National Assembly and Members of the public on the other. So, the arrogance of those mandarins in the Treasury will come to an end. The Budget will be a political process, and not something for control by civil servants. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the Committee of Ways and Means, and the Committee of Supply, will be abolished to be replaced by new appropriation procedures that will encourage the contestation of policies tabled by the Government, to establish funding priorities that have been discussed by the representatives of the people in Parliament. In other words, it is not the figures of the Budget that are important, but rather the policies. It is this House which must \"panel- beat\" these policies and legislations, and find what is good for the people of Kenya. It is for that reason, therefore, that we are saying, we do not need the Committee of Ways and Means, and the Committee of Supply. The Departmental Committees will do the job, and there is no one Ministry, or Department, that will escape scrutiny. So, we are killing the guillotine procedure once and for all - nor will such power to allocate resources be the monopoly of select members of the kitchen cabinet surrounding the imperial president. What is the tragedy of roads in this country? It was allocated to a few constituencies, which belong to members of the Kitchen Cabinet of the President. They have taken us back many years again. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the Kitchen Cabinet is awful in this country. During the late President Kenyatta's time, it was there. It was re-created during former President Moi's tenure. It has been re-created during President Kibaki's tenure. Therefore, resources are going to the homes of those who are privileged and who are well placed. We, who represent the rest of Kenya, do not get a share, a just and fair share, of our resources in this country. Power will shift from the civil servants to politicians, who will be the kingpins in the allocation of national resources. This will make the Budget a political process at macro and micro- levels. Therefore, hon. Members have an obligation to inform the Government, as accurately as possible, about priorities as demanded by the people they represent in Parliament. I want to conclude by saying as follows. It is also a challenge to Members of Parliament because, it will be a lot more work for Members of the Committees. They will have to spend more time in their Committee work."
}