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"id": 444588,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/444588/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Hon. Mulu",
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"speaker": {
"id": 1955,
"legal_name": "Benson Makali Mulu",
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"content": "This is very important because when loans are used in the productive sector, then those loans are able to help the economy grow, and repayment becomes easier. We actually do not overburden our future generations. But even after saying there are good things in this Budget. I think there are things we need to note, and which, as we move forward must be improved. One of the lessons we have learnt this year, is that there are still some bureaucrats in Treasury, who are living in the old constitutional order. They need to be aware that we have a new Constitution, which actually makes this House a budget-making House. It is for the National Treasury to note that when the Estimates are passed by the House, it is not the work of Parliament to readjust the Budget to the approved Estimates. It is the work of the National Treasury. Even as we talk of the gap, I think Treasury should have taken the first step to make sure that this gap is non-existent. They should have gone to the itemized Budget and reduced some of the budgets, so that we have a balanced Budget. This has not happened basically because the National Treasury thinks that this Parliament will continue rubber-stamping their Budget. This is not going to happen. I think time has come, for Treasury to realize that this House has a mandate to make the Budget and they can make adjustments; when adjustments are made by this House, they only need to act as per the drafted report. The other thing which needs to be noted is that, this Budget has actually a huge component of what we call the AIA, that is Appropriations-in-Aid. The expectation is that, this money will be collected by Ministries and then the money will go to the Consolidated Fund and the money will be used to implement the Budget. In the past, there have been experiences which have not been very good for this country. Where this money is put in the Budget the issue is collecting it and making sure it is spent. I think this year we want to urge Ministries to make sure that the money is collected, and used to fund this Budget. The other thing which I think needs to be given attention as we move forward. Is the issue of food security. When you look at this Budget, we have set aside money for irrigation, which will actually enable this country to irrigate only 10,000 acres of land against a target of a million acres. If you compare, 10,000 in a year against a target of a million acres in five years, obviously we will require about a hundred years to implement this. It, therefore, means that if you are serious about food security in this country, we need to allocate more resources to this area. The other area, which I want to talk about, is the cost of living. This Budget must be financed. As we finance this Budget, I would plead that we manage a delicate balance between financing the Budget and ensuring that the cost of living is not increased for poor citizens. One of the best ways to do that is to make sure that when the Finance Bill, which will indicate how we will raise in revenue, comes we make sure that this year deliberate efforts are made by the National Treasury to bring many more Kenyans into the tax net. We should tax more people instead of increasing the tax rate for those who are paying the tax. By doing that, we will make sure that we do not really increase the cost of living for most of us. We should make sure that issues to do with inflation, which contribute to high inflation rate, should be managed, so that we have a low cost of living. If we do not do that, I can assure you that Kenyans will not stop complaining about the high cost of living, which is a national issue of concern. The last thing I want to say is when you look at this Budget of Ksh1.8 trillion the only money that goes to the county governments is about Ksh226 billion. This means The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}