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{
    "id": 381924,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/381924/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 106,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Kajwang’",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 164,
        "legal_name": "Gerald Otieno Kajwang",
        "slug": "otieno-kajwang"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, I have listened to the hon. Senator. This Statement is coming from the Committee on Finance. It is like we are closing the stable when the horse has already escaped. This is because, essentially, I think that the TA did not do its job very well. They were supposed to provide the capacity for the county governments to do, from Day 1, what they were supposed to do and not to leave them to mess and then we complain, as if we set them out to fail. If I were a Governor and was supposed to do a budget, definitely, I would fail if I did not have people with the capacity to help me work out that budget. In fact, budgets are very difficult to work out. I can tell you that all this Members who campaigned, probably, did not have a budget. This is because they do not know how to work out budgets. So, it is a technical thing. They should have provided technical staff to help these ladies and gentlemen work out their budgets. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, look at the situation in some of the counties, where the budget says: “This is what we will do with the money that is coming, which is only about Kshs5 billion to Kshs6 billion.” Then, they say that their budget is Kshs20 billion, without saying exactly where the money will come from or showing any commitment from any donor as to where that money will come from. The technical people from the TA let this come to the Treasury. I think that it should have been stopped. They should have been asked: You only have Kshs5 billion; where are you getting this Kshs20,000? They would have said: “The IMF has given me this and another bank will give this.” From this you can make a meaningful budget. A budget is not a wish list. Eventually, that is now what we are seeing all over the country. They are just wish lists. It is like saying: I wish I had a mountain. I would have done this and that in one year. These budgets do not seem to have been built on some progression. We are here for five years, this is the project that we want to start. This is how it will go until the circle of three years is over. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, I hope that the Committee will take this seriously. In fact, we need a serious amendment, if not to the Constitution, then to any other Act of Parliament, that would give serious oversight even at the time of budgeting. This is because if the budget is wrong, then the entire implementation is wrong. You will be oversighting something which already started on a very wrong premise. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, those are my very humble views."
}