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"id": 233651,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/233651/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Kimunya",
"speaker_title": "The Minister for Finance",
"speaker": {
"id": 174,
"legal_name": "Amos Muhinga Kimunya",
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"content": " Mr. Speaker, Sir, I wish to start by thanking the hon. Members for their contributions. I believe it has been healthy. This is a reminder of the principles on some of the issues that the hon. Members have raised and I will take this on board. I wish to just comment on a number of issues that have come up for purposes of throwing light on the debate during proceedings in the Committee Stage. I wish to just reiterate that our economy has grown. That was brought up by the Shadow Minister for Finance. Contrary to the picture that may have been painted, in fact, we are seeing not just the economic growth, but very broad-based economic development. It is the sum total of all this development that is accumulating to 5.8 per cent and we should not really be waiting for the 5.8 per cent growth rate to trickle down. This is actually an accumulation of the growth that we have seen across the entire country. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I take the point in terms of re-orientating priority to areas that will help our economy. This is something that we are doing. I had mentioned this in my moving note. Again, for the record and contrary to the impression that was created, inflation is currently at just under 13 per cent and not the 16 per cent that the hon. Member mentioned. This was on account of the high world oil prices, but we have now tamed the prices and we have seen pump oil prices come down by about Kshs5. We hope that with sustained pressure from the hon. Members, the civil society and the oil consumers, we can bring the prices down with its knock-on effect on the inflation. With regard to the development of the Vision 2030, this is a Kenyan's project and not a Government's project. I wish to confirm to all the hon. Members that everyone will be involved. Indeed, on the day of the launch of the project, we had invited the hon. Members, but only a few chose to come. Next time we will make sure that we carry this baby together. It is our future and not for any Government or person. The vision is for all of us. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I would also like to make a commitment, as a Government, to the implementation of the various reports coming from the various institutions, be they from the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), the Public Investments Committee (PIC) or the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights. We receive those reports. We may not agree with their methodologies, but we take note of all the good things that are contained therein. We will continue to implement them. Just to comment on the Budget Law, because that came up, we are aiming to bring to this House an enrichment of some of the provisions contained within the Fiscal Management Bill. We recognise that, that Bill is before the House. If it comes before the House, we will still give our input into it. But we have looked beyond that Bill and there are still other issues that were being left out. I would like to have those issues addressed within this wider comprehensive Budget Law. I can only give our commitment to the House that, indeed, that will be coming sooner rather than later. The participation that we envisage within the Budget process by Parliament, again, we want to enrich that, knowing that the Government prepares the Budget in terms of how it wants to deliver on the mandate given to it by the people when it is given the responsibility to govern. This House has the responsibility of then authorising that and appropriating those funds. We want to create that symbiotic relationship and enrich it, so that whatever will come out will be a Budget that has been negotiated and agreed upon between Parliament and the Government for the benefit of the people of Kenya. November 22, 2006 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 3891 Mr. Speaker, Sir, with regard to the youth affairs, we appropriated a Fund of Kshs1 billion, and I believe this House supports it. The modalities are now in place in terms of the regulations that are required to access this money. I believe that hon. Members will appreciate that this is the first time that such a Fund is being created. We have seen funds like that, for example, we had a Women Fund and a youth fund in the past which turned out to be political. They did not benefit the beneficiaries. This time round, we need to look at the Youth Fund as not necessarily a Government Fund. This is a Fund for all the youth in Kenya. I hope that even as we publish the regulations and start implementing the Fund, we will get a positive feedback from this House in terms of how we can enrich it, so that our youth can benefit by accessing this money and turning their lives into hope rather than despair. Again, turning to one of the issues that were mentioned, a challenge was thrown to us to clarify the issue of corruption that is being talked about by some foreigners, either stationed here or elsewhere. If you look at the latest World Bank Reports on Kenya and the confidence that we have built to the extent of even unlocking some of the money that was tied up in Washington, you will find that everyone admits that Kenya has made tremendous progress in the fight against corruption. However, what is not coming out is the perception, which has still not been cleansed out, thanks mainly to the misinformation that is coming out through the Media, some of the hostile Non- Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and partly our own failure as leaders when we go out there and tell Kenyans that our economy is being fuelled by illicit money. I believe that we have a responsibility, as leaders, to remember that this country is ours and whatever we do, we can either destroy or build it. If we chose to destroy it, we will not be destroying if for ourselves because here, we are highly paid and well remunerated, but our children who are not here will have a country where they cannot operate because we destroyed it for them. I hope that those people, especially the envoys who have been quoted, would be listening to the right people instead of reading the wrong newspapers. I do not know which newspapers they read. They should come for the facts which we give to them. I will be meeting them on 1st December, as a group, to give them more facts, so that people do not talk out of context, especially when organisations that we thought were reputable like Transparency International, say that Kshs85 billion has been misused. The Appropriation that we are making in this House today is about Kshs340 billion. The alleged Kshs85 billion is 25 per cent of that amount. We should factor in the fact that so much money is going to be paid to teachers and Kshs102 billion goes to our education. If we now look at how much money will go to the rest of the Civil Service in terms of salaries and paying all the other things, you then ask yourself where is this Kshs85 billion that they are talking about which you have not seen in this House? You are not appropriating any of this money for it to have disappeared with TI. We need to look at who are these people who are making these alarmist statements, some of them just basically to create the impression that corruption is so high in Kenya and that donors need to give money to the civil society organisations to help in the fight against corruption. These are marketing tools that are being used but, unfortunately, as a House, we are being dragged into this; that, we are appropriation Kshs85 billion to be spent. We need to speak together as leaders because it is our country that is under attack here. It is not just the Government. When people say that Kenya is corrupt, it is not the Kibaki Administration that is being labelled as being corrupt, but the 34 million Kenyans. As representatives of the 34 million Kenyans, we have a responsibility to defend our country and say that Kenyans can do better than what they are being labelled to be. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I also wish to echo the sentiments by my colleague, the Minister for Roads and Public Works in terms of the externally sourced funds and the frustrations we have had. This is basically the reason why we are moving towards financial independence. I would really wish that this House joins hands with the Government in promoting measures that will bring in more revenue, so that when we bring tax measures to this House, it does not matter the small bits 3892 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES November 22, 2006 and pieces that we want to tax and collect from the different sources. We should all support it because that way, we are going to achieve our financial independence and do all these projects without having to resort to people who give us conditionalities because of interests that are not in tandem with ours as a country. Hon. Members may recall the events a couple of weeks back when we lost some of the revenue we had projected. If we can now start rethinking and working together, we would move this country forward. Lastly, I just want to mention, for the benefit of Maj-Gen. Nkaisserry - I wish he was here to get the reply he sought on disaster - that as a Government, we have put measures in place. We have a Ministry dedicated to Special Programmes and a Disaster Management Centre which was created specifically to respond to such incidents, and it is doing very well. During the recent incident that occurred, when a building collapsed, we saw our people on the ground. They responded long before other people formed committees to work out on how to go out and assist. Our own people were there to respond and save Kenyans. In handling the disasters we are experiencing at the Coast, we have seen bridges coming up and the response we have received in terms of food. We have ensured that the suffering is minimised. In managing disasters, we have been using our own relief food. Early this year, we did not need to import food because we had enough and we appropriated the money through this House. Finally, on the issue of vehicles that were withdrawn, I would like to report to this House that the progress has been very good. I am very encouraged by the results. In the process, we have managed not only to mop up excess vehicles that were operating against the law, but we have a very up-to-date inventory of every Government vehicle, wherever it is located in this country, and the condition it is in. We will be giving you an update on that in the next couple of weeks. I believe with those few remarks, I have responded to as many issues as hon. Members needed clarification. I would like to ask that we pass this Bill so that we have the power to serve our people. I would also like to assure this House, once again, that the Kibaki Administration's second name is \"value for money\". We will continue to live by that, grow the economy and give Kenyans value for the taxes they pay because that is the only way this country will move forward. With those few remarks, I beg to move."
}