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{
    "id": 449318,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/449318/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 260,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Musyimi",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 95,
        "legal_name": "Mutava Musyimi",
        "slug": "mutava-musyimi"
    },
    "content": "Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, I remember listening to the Minister for Finance for Nigeria when I was in that country during the meeting that was going there. She made a very powerful point. She said that one of her concerns about African governments is their delivery capacity; there is a delivery gap. What is the capacity of our governments to deliver on the programmes to which we commit? That is a programmatic and professional question and not a political question. I think to again look at the institution of Government, we have designed it in line with the new Constitution. We have set up the different systems and structure. It is too near to begin to be too critical. However, in terms of staffing, are we over-established? Is there duplication? Why the lethargy? Are our staff underpaid? Do they have the capacity? How will we re-engineer the Public Service so that its delivery capacity is predictable? These are questions that we need to keep asking. This is because when you get to the point where the Recurrent Expenditure is tilted in favour of the Development Expenditure, anybody who has worked in a similar situation will tell you that you have a problem. So, we may need to come back and ask human resource questions about the delivery capacity of our Government. May I also say that we have accepted as a Budget and Appropriations Committee that we are doing some things too late, like the public hearings. We have agreed that for the 2015/2016 Financial Year, we want to do public hearings in September, October and November. We will make sure that we do them using the county platform and not the constituency platform because this is the National Assembly. We can also make a contribution early enough before we begin talking about the Budget Policy Statement (BPS) in January, February and so on. I look forward to making sure that we go to all the counties early enough, certainly before December so that we can make tangible inputs in the BPS. As I close, the issue of Anglo Leasing has come up. I want to thank Members of the Departmental Committee on Finance, Planning and Trade and the Budget and Appropriations Committee. They met and felt that we should support payment. In fact, payment has been made. I am constrained to remind us here that we did not support payment because we did not believe that Anglo Leasing was not fraudulent, indeed, it is! However, we also knew that this was not a choice between good and bad; this was a choice between bad and worse and so we opted to support payment. I am not in any doubt that in the course of time we will know that, that was the way to go in the interest of supporting a nation we love. I once again thank hon. Members for their contribution. We will continue to reflect, and I mean just that, as professionals to see how best we can help our country as the Budget and Appropriations Committee as we work with the other agencies. I beg to reply."
}