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{
    "id": 298149,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/298149/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 118,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Prof. Anyang’-Nyong’o",
    "speaker_title": "The Minister for Medical Services",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 193,
        "legal_name": "Peter Anyang' Nyong'o",
        "slug": "peter-nyongo"
    },
    "content": " Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I am coming to that. I was just clarifying what my friend, hon. Chanzu, said although he is not in the House. However, it must go on record and in the HANSARD that I have clarified hon. Chanzu’s outdated ideas regarding what we are doing in the health sector. That is very important. Having said that, I am very concerned with the manner in which we are approaching financial matters in the House and as a nation. This is with regard to the Appropriation Bill. I want to give a very brief presentation on what I think should be the philosophy behind discussing the Appropriation Bill. Every Government that is elected in a democratic system is elected on the policies that it presents to people in a manifesto. That manifesto forms the basis on which the Government wins the majority to form the Government. Once you form the Government, the voters expect you to fulfill your manifesto and policies. Democracy has it that when you are in the Executive, you are meant to execute your policies but you cannot execute your policies unless you tax your people. That is why in those days the Americans rebelled against the British colonialists because they said; “no taxation without representation”. They did not want the British colonialists to tax them if they did not have a certain room for self governance. In a democracy, this mischief is cured by electing representatives to representative institutions like Parliament so that the representatives can give approval to the Government to tax people and use that tax according to the policies on which the Government won the votes to form the Government. In our system in Kenya in particular of democracy, we have known that the Government presents polices to Parliament in terms of Sessional or Policy Papers and on those policies go ahead to propose programmes for which they require finances from Parliament. It is, therefore, the Executive that produces polices which Parliament approve and on the basis of those policies, the Government goes ahead to look for money and proposes how to raise money and brings it to Parliament for approval. The role of Parliament, therefore, is to look at the manner in which the Government seeks to spend the money whether that is in line with the policies that Parliament has already approved. As I understand it, it is not for Parliament to apportion monies here and there once it approves Government policies. There must be a clear division of labour between the Executive and the Legislature. The Legislature must scrutinize expenditures and find out whether it is according to the priorities and policies of the Government and, therefore, approve because they had already approved the policies but not to alter those figures drastically such that they will depart from the policies that have already been approved. The Kenya Government has the Vision 2030 which sets out the framework on how we should carry out public expenditure from now until the year 2030 so that by that time, we have reached a certain goal. The Government must be very clear that in every proposal they bring to Parliament, it is in line with achieving or pursuing the goals of Vision 2030. If it is not in line with Vision 2030, then Parliament should hold the Government into account and say that its proposals to spend money are out of step with the policies. However, it seems as if we have gradually drifted towards a practice where we only look at expenditures in an isolated manner outside the overall policies that have been approved on which the Government should spend money. If you spend too much time with the little details and not looking at the bigger picture, we will not achieve Vision 2030. This is my concern. That is the mistake that we have been making since the year 2003 when I was in the Ministry of State for Planning, National Development and Vision 2030. Although the Economy Recovery Strategy said quite clearly that the social pillar of the VRS was very important in achieving our goals in economic recovery and the social pillar still remains important in achieving the Vision 2030, we seem to be downgrading the social pillar consistently and only looking at it in terms of education and not the other social expenditures that are necessary to achieve Vision 2030. One of the most important aspects of social pillar is health. That is why after we have done our baseline study in the Ministry, we said that the Ministry of Health in order to achieve Vision 2030 needs, at least, Kshs85 billion annually to achieve that vision. If we do not, we will never do it. That Kshs85 billion can come partly from the Government in terms of the Appropriation Bill, both the Exchequer provisions and Appropriations-in- Aid but it can also come through other means. It is in those other means that the Government should propose to Parliament to approve so that we can travel effectively towards Vision 2030. I am saying this because I think we need to have a retreat after this, maybe after we come back from recess to really discuss financing Government projects including health projects. This is because unless we get this financing philosophy properly, we will be doing things in bits and pieces in this House, passing the Appropriation Bill from year to year but they do not cumulatively add up to our meeting Vision 2030. Thank you."
}