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"speaker_name": "Mr. Maore",
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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the Executive's control over the CBK will make it possible for the Government not to be restrained by anybody when borrowing in the domestic market. It will also make it start the habit of printing money, if it is inconvenienced. It will also make it run out of control over very many other issues. So, I would like to ask the Minister for Finance, when he brings here proposed legislation related to this year's Financial Statement, not to include in it amendments to the CBK Act. He wants to cause a revolution in the management of the CBK. If he executes his intention he will live to regret it. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, there was a populist statement that the Minister included in the Financial Statement, namely, his intention to tax the allowances of Members of Parliament. It is true that he did get a lot of cheers and the political mileage he wanted. But demagoguery is not the best thing to be employed by a Minister for Finance. One should talk about things that are practical and possible in the Financial Statement. The allowances to Members of Parliament are not gifts from the Minister for Finance. There is a clear procedure on how to amend the law on those allowances. The Minister knows very well that he is not able to amend that law. He just wanted to be cheered, and also to show how revolutionary and populist he can be. It will just end there. He very well knows that he will go nowhere with it. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to raise the issue of mixing politics with economics. We have the bursary allocation to schools. Now, we are having debate emanating from teachers that they would like the money to be sent to schools. Those of us who were in Parliament before 2003 know that about Kshs600 million per year used to be sent to the District Education Officers (DEOs), who usually sat with the headteachers of secondary schools and came up with fictitious lists of alleged beneficiaries of that money. The money ended up being shared out between headteachers and officers in the DEOs' offices. I had this problem in 1996, 1997, 1998 and 2000. When I complained in writing, they asked for auditors who were also given a share of that money. They came back and we never had any audit reports. So, we need some mechanisms to be put in place to enable members of local communities to be involved in the constituency bursary committees. We should strengthen these committees instead of weakening them. Government officers, even if they are teachers, should not be trusted with money. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, this is the fourth Budget under the NARC Government. As we finalise debate on this Budget, we are taken aback by the various promises on the development of infrastructure. There is the issue of the procurement rules that were supposed to be put in place to prescribe the time for award of contracts and completion period of contract jobs. The Government has not been very keen on these regulations. It is a major setback, because contracts for very critical roads have not been issued to date. The difference between a democratic government and a monarchy is that the latter is not limited in tenure; this Government is. What we are having today is a Government that does not have a manifesto, theory or philosophy for governance. We have a NARC Government that has kind of mutated into several small pieces. After the mutation, it has gone ahead to state the official position and then picked parties here and there. As a result we have a Government that is trying to stave off scandal after scandal. We have not sorted out the Anglo Leasing Scandal. Now we have the Artur brothers saga. Moreso, instead of prosecuting the culprits who were involved in the Goldenberg scandal, the Government has been 1744 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES June 29, 2006 extorting them. This Government is facing an identity crisis. We do not know which manifesto or philosophy they are following. We do not know which theory of governance to abide by. You do not know the difference between the Opposition and Government because part of the Government is in the Opposition and vice-versa. It is a very sorry state of democracy in this country. For democracy to flourish and take root, we need politicians to stand firm by ideology and shun tribalism, not to adore their tribal cocoons as the ideal way to run a country. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, in next year's General Elections, which are around the corner, we are going to witness a very interesting scenario, whereby the political ideology will be thrown through the window and people will be coming with tribes on the table and they sit and say they want to win an election but not to govern a country. It is going to be the same thuggery that we saw in 2002. People just patched together in a hurry to take over Government, but they did not have an idea of what to do after taking over. Immediately thereafter, they started quarrelling over the spoils and to date, there has never been any harmony or coherence in the governance of this country. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, as we spend the fourth year of the NARC anarchy, we hope leaders who can rise above tribalism, parochialism, ineptitude, inaction and indecision will come up and take over the country into greater heights of prosperity. With those remarks, I beg to support."
}