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{
"id": 222100,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/222100/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Michuki",
"speaker_title": "The Minister of State for Administration and National Security",
"speaker": {
"id": 183,
"legal_name": "John Njoroge Michuki",
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"content": " Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I wish to thank you very much for giving me this opportunity to express my views on this Bill. For the first time from hon. Arungah, I have been able to understand what reference to the word \"fiscal\" means in the context of this Bill. In trying to go through the Bill, my experience and knowledge on these matters are at variance with the meaning assigned in this Bill to the word \"fiscal\". It is issues that relate to taxation. Issues that relate to what you have. Strictly speaking, it does not cover the expenditure side. Hon. Arungah has been able to clarify this more than it is clarified in this Bill. In short, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I am saying that I have a problem in understanding this Bill because the interpretations of the words used are at variance with common usage as currently applied to financial matters in this country. This Bill, first of all, is an Act of Parliament to provide for the regulation and oversight of the national Budget process. The Act is meant to provide an oversight of the national Budget process. I have a problem in understanding what the word \"process\" in this context, really means. In my opinion, a budget is a financial statement that contains figures that represent the interpretation of policy already made. In order to arrive at the compilation--- Let me call it compilation rather than anything that goes through the process. In compiling that budget, you start compiling a budget almost immediately after you conclude the other one. During that period, decisions on policy that will be interpreted in terms of figures in the subsequent Budget continue to be made on a daily basis. If you like, that is what you might call a \"process\"; a process that leads to a decision that culminates into the creation of a budget. Therefore, when you have an oversight--- When you say that you are passing a law in order to have an oversight on the process, what exactly are you telling us? Are you saying that you are going to sit in Ministries where that process is taking place where a project, for example, to start an irrigation project is being discussed? You start the process from the moment you begin discussing that project. It does not become a part of the Budget; maybe two, three or four years later, when the policy decision has been made, that decision having been reached by going through the process of creation of project called irrigation. You can call it Tana River, Kano areas or wherever. Therefore, if we say that an Act of Parliament is needed to regulate and play an oversight over that process, what exactly are we saying? Are we saying that this House is now going to take it upon itself to control the thinking process that takes place immediately after one Budget head to the other so that it creates a budget at the end of the day when the Minister 1332 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES May 15, 2007 presents the Budget here, or what is it? It is not clear! Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, in my opinion, this heading raises very fundamental misunderstandings and is exactly what it is, that we are going to control. The heading itself, also talks about establishment of a Parliamentary Office for Fiscal Analysis for the oversight of the national budget. I do not know whether this is intended to control taxation. If it is referring to both sides of the Budget; that is to say that taxation side; the supply side, it might be right. However, if it means---"
}