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"id": 298165,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/298165/?format=api",
"text_counter": 134,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Onyonka",
"speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs",
"speaker": {
"id": 128,
"legal_name": "Richard Momoima Onyonka",
"slug": "richard-onyonka"
},
"content": " Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, I will be very brief. First of all, I would like to echo the very able and extremely apt sentiments that have been expressed by my chairman, who ably represents many of us. The truth is that we are happy to be contributing to this Appropriation Bill, even when initially many of us had certain reservations as to whether it had been done properly, whether it was being interrogated correctly and whether the Executive was actually performing its proper role and making sure that the legislature and the Executive were working together to make sure that the public, whom we are all serving, receive what is necessary for our country to move forward. Before I continue, I would like to thank the Minister for Finance, who has come out quite ably. Given the fact that he has been in office for the last about three months, I think, to a large extent, he has carried himself well, and we appreciate it. So, I am making an assumption that any errors of omission and commission are, most probably, mistakes in good faith. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, I believe that budgetary provisions and financial expenditure in any institution, Government or facility are based on the very basic principle or premise that you try to achieve certain targets and, therefore, you must have benchmarks which then allow you to achieve your targets; you will thus have funding appropriately allocated to enable you achieve those targets. I think largely if we were to major on our performance like the Chairman, Mr. Ethuro had said in terms of how our agriculture has performed, I think to a large extent, it is reasonably and averagely okay but on some occasions when you look at the appropriations of funds and grants, for example, I was shocked that when we were having a discussion with the Permanent Secretary from the Ministry of Agriculture, I found that money had been allocated to some of the individuals in my constituency without I, as the Member of Parliament, knowing. Not that there is anything wrong in that money being allocated but we need a structure where the Legislature, especially Members of Parliament are able to know or are informed as to exactly which funds or monies are being given where, so that then we can monitor and evaluate whether this money is achieving its laid down targets. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, when you look at the issue of education and, I am glad the Minister is here, I am sure he has seen many articles recently discussing where free primary education money goes. Very unfortunately, everybody at the grassroots level discusses the Constituencies Development Fund (CDF) money and yet our funds are only 2.5 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) collectible revenue. If you look at the billions going for free education – for education only - I think we need structures and parameters into place which would control how this money is being used. This would make sure that there is proper monitoring and evaluation and which would make sure that even the community is directly involved so that we are able to monitor how these funds are being spent or utilized. On the issue of bursaries, I totally agree that the bursary funding has done an excellent job even with a few problems here and there. I believe that this has been a worthy cause and I believe it is going a long way in making sure that we support especially the very poor students and children who are going to school. On the issue of health, it is true that under the Economic Stimulus Programme (ESP), as mentioned, we have constructed very good health centers but these health centers do not have beds, medicine, incinerators even though some of them are doing them now. It is important that the Government has a meeting with us to tell us what is going to happen next because buildings are there now. They have electricity but we have nothing. They are not being utilized and it is important that they are. I know that some money has been allocated for this and this will go a long way in solving the problem that the Chairman came up with, trying to reduce the child maternal health statistics which, if you look at the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and health being one of the benchmarks or the pillars, in Kenya, we have done badly on this. When you look at the performance of the CDF, I would say that I want to thank the Minister for having stood up and firmly stated that the CDF will be maintained. It may change the format of how it comes to the county governments but let us not destroy this very wonderful devolved funding system which was created some ten years ago. The issue of misuse or money being mismanaged can be dealt with legislatively but I believe that we should never allow the CDF to die because when you look at many of the African countries now, many of them are taking the CDF as a module of development for devolving funds from the center to the grassroots. I am sure you will agree with me that many of the issues in Africa on poverty, bad politics, bad governance, misappropriation and misallocation of funds is because there is too much power at the center and the funds are also concentrated at the center and the center will manipulate and misappropriate these funds. The CDF for us is a model that we need to jealously guard. We should make sure that we safeguard it. Last but not least, I am happy with this Appropriations Bill particularly for us who come from the Gusii County. I am happy that the Level Five General Hospital has been allocated more funds for expansion because of our population. We are very proud of that hospital. I think we have moved a long way and we are also very happy that monies have been allocated to other wards. We are only making a request, for example, if you go to Kisii Township today, you will realize that all the by-pass roads which were done two years ago have all collapsed because of poor workmanship and because of lack of supervision. We are hoping that the Ministry for Roads will own up and make sure that we consider these to be things of the past. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, finally, I think it is important that we do not overstretch our Recurrent Expenditure. The Government needs to come up with more specific structures on how we can control the money we are spending on fuel and salaries. We need to make sure that we get value for money for our country to move forward. Other than that, I believe that our country is moving in the right direction and I am very proud to be in this House. If anything can be blamed on the Tenth Parliament of all the negative issues that have been discussed about it, I think, first, we have finally come up and implemented budgetary provisions according to the Constitution. This is something that this Parliament should be commended for. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}