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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Speaker, Sir, for giving me the opportunity to contribute to this debate. I want to welcome some of the proposals contained in the Financial Statement by the Minister for Finance when he presented his Budget although I have reservations. If you analyze the Budget Speech carefully, it sounds like a manifesto for a general election. A lot of the statements contained in the Budget Speech is a mere wish list by the Government. However, there are few areas that are laudable. These include proposals to streamline healthcare procurement to ensure that our dispensaries and health centres access medicines without having to go through the cumbersome processes that we have witnessed. I hope that this initiative will not create the conflicts we have witnessed in the last three years, when there was a tug-of-war between the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Finance, where the Ministry of Health would be pulling in one direction and the Ministry of Finance pulling in the opposite direction. Mr. Speaker, Sir, a very laudable initiative by the Minister for Finance is the proposal to introduce the Budget Monitoring Unit (BMU) which, he says, will be revamped to give it the responsibility of co-ordinating development of sector specific bench marks and Budget implementation parameters. More so particularly in the area of roads and water programmes. However, I would like the Minister to improve on the aspect of quarterly reporting by the BMU. It should not be purely for disseminating reports on implementation of the road and water sector programmes merely to the public. I would want the Minister to make it a policy that the BMU gives quarterly performance reports on the various sector programmes to the various Departmental Committees of the House for onward transmission to this House, so that we can deliberate on them and give suggestions to the Government. When the BMU reports that such and such programmes are being implemented, as Parliament, we should be able to input suggestions and pool in the same direction. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I have no quarrel with the Minister's proposal to rehabilitate or develop youth polytechnics in every constituency. However, I doubt whether Kshs500,000 is enough to start a youth polytechnic where none existed. If you divide the Kshs105 million that has been set aside for this purpose with 210 constituencies, each constituency will get Kshs500,000. Mr. Speaker, Sir, anyway half a loaf is better than none. In addition to that, if I were to borrow some political words used recently I would say, hata mkia ni nyama . Perhaps in that spirit, the other million would make some sense. There is a proposal by the Minister, which I find very 1606 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES June 27, 2006 curious; that contributions to political parties of up to Kshs1 million per financial year would become tax deductible. I think that is a good idea. However, for it to be effected without a political party's law being established, in my view, is an extremely dangerous proposal. There would be no mechanism of ensuring that in one entry, a director or a shareholder in many companies will not make contributions to one political party and claim that he wants some relief for having done so. I want us to be transparent, and live above board. I know that in the course of next year, there will be elections. As much as that is not a bad idea, it is important for us to have a legal framework in which contributions to political parties and entities will be made in a way that there will be no question of people feeling like they have been shortchanged. I know that the Minister proposes to enhance the monthly allocations to the VAT Department, for refunds, to Kshs900 million. I feel that figure is below the actual claims that are made on monthly basis. The Minister will be at liberty to tell us the real figures, but I think Kshs900 million is not enough because we have claims which go higher than that. Besides the claims, I think there is an element in the section which is meant to punish people who are not yet Electronic Tax Register (ETR) compliant. That issue, being effected against the backdrop of a pending Court of Appeal decision on the saga revolving against the ETRs is not very fair. That means that those who went to court and others who are silently supporting them will get penalised in their VAT claims. However genuine their claims may be, they will not be prioritised because the Minister said that priority will be given to those who are ETR compliant. The Minister should have waited for the Court of Appeal ruling, since he is in Government. He should have asked the Attorney-General to assist him to have the ruling made in good time. Mr. Speaker, Sir, there is no country that can develop without education. We keep on saying that Kenya was on the same economic level with Korea and other Eastern Asia Tigers. However, we fail to acknowledge one point; that at the time of Independence, Korea and the other countries we talk about had invested heavily on education. No wonder, we get mesmerised at how they took off. However, they had a huge stock of educated people, such that it was not a problem for them to take off. We keep on saying that our exchange rate was the same. That should not be the main measure. In terms of education, they were ahead of us. I expected the Minister to address the issue of education because it is not fair that we have to lose so many people who are not able to join public universities, yet they have passed their examinations, due to lack of space. We need to engage the education sector and, particularly, professors in the universities so that we come up with viable proposals on how to finance and allow many of our high school leavers to access higher education. Looking through the Minister's Budget Speech, I want to say in passing that he said nothing in relation with the provision of a new Constitution. There is no provision for it. That means that the Government has settled for the current Constitution. That is a matter we need to address when the Government Members finally cross over to the Opposition side of the House. In conclusion, there is an issue of local contractors which has been addressed. I am not happy with what the Minister said. On paragraph 3 page 19, the Minister says: \"Contractors have failed us in delivery of quality roads. We know that has been done in connivance with our engineers. We have ample evidence in review of pending bills. Let our engineers, who are not ready to work, know that the Government is ready to dispense with them and if not, hire expatriate engineers.\" Is that a reason for our country to hire expatriates? Is it that we cannot come up with solutions and rules that our local engineers can follow? I think that is an admission that we have hit a dead end. How can we admit that our engineers cannot reform and we have to get expatriates? I am not willing to take that route. We need to come up with rules. Let us get the stakeholders in the sector together with our engineers and come up with viable proposals that will ensure that we get value for our money in all Government undertakings, but not to suggest that we need to look for June 27, 2006 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 1607 expatriates to come and do work for us. With those few remarks, I support."
}