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{
    "id": 26476,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/26476/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 464,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Mbadi",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 110,
        "legal_name": "John Mbadi Ng'ong'o",
        "slug": "john-mbadi"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I rise to support this Bill. I think many a time we get faced with urgent and emergency situations. Therefore, as a country, this is something we live with everyday. Therefore, legislating on how we can set contingency fund and how it can be spent is a welcome idea. I am approving the fact that the Cabinet Secretary will be satisfied that the issue to release funds for is actually urgent and unforeseen. I want us to look for a way of making sure that those issues that we appropriate funds to are urgent and unforeseen. What I notice in this country is that many times, we spend money from the Contingency Fund. These are things which could have been foreseen. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we need to come to terms with the fact that we can stop this careless lack of planning on the part of the Executive. It is a welcome idea that the Cabinet will approve the emergency situations and the expenditure from the Contingency Fund before it is done. I do not want to agree with hon. Ongoro when she says that the approval after two months is not necessary. To me, it is necessary because the county executive had already approved and if it is at the National Government, the Cabinet Secretary had already approved. So, what the Cabinet Secretary is doing is just to report to Parliament or county assembly that they spent those funds on particular projects. The way it is in the Bill is welcome and that is the only way. If you put expenditure from the Contingency Fund to be approved by Parliament before you spend, you are putting the county at risk because if there is famine and Parliament is on recess, you will have to recall Parliament and before they organize themselves, people will be dying. I think it is important that we allow sometimes the Executive to make decisions especially where we have set aside funds for expenditure from the Contingency Fund. However, I am just concerned about some mistakes in this Bill, which I do not know whether they are typographical, but the Minister can go through this with me. Clause 13(2)(a) states that:- “For the purposes of sub-section (1), there is an urgent need for expenditure if in the opinion of the Cabinet Treasurer—“ This are county government emergency funds. I do not understand that Cabinet Treasurer. I think it should be county secretary. It is the county secretary who is standing in place of the Cabinet Secretary at the county level. Even the county treasurer on Clause 16 needs to be changed to country secretary. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I have two final issues which I want to raise which I think are also mistakes. One is not a mistake, but I really do not see the value of this in Clause 17(4) under the miscellaneous provisions that:- “The Cabinet Secretary may make regulations not inconsistent with this Act”. Certainly, you cannot make decisions which are inconsistent with the law. Why do you have to repeat “not inconsistent with this Act”? That is superfluous and should be left out. I am making this comment on Clause 17(3) in relation to the Bill that we passed. If you look at this Bill, it says that:- “regulations made under sub-section (1) shall not take effect unless approved by a resolution passed by each House of Parliament”."
}