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{
    "id": 462542,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/462542/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 358,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Mwaura",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13129,
        "legal_name": "Isaac Maigua Mwaura",
        "slug": "isaac-mwaura"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir. Let me take advantage of the two minutes because you do not know about tomorrow. I rise to support this Motion because it is timely. I would like to say that the people who travel on First Class also introduce a mismatch in terms of protocol. You will find, as hon. Members have said, that when you are on an international flight, as I was recently, Principal Secretaries travel First Class while Members of Parliament travel on Business Class. So, they come down to you and you cannot even use that time to catch up on policy issues. It is wrong. What is it that one gains from getting the First Class treatment? It is just pampering individuals’ egos. As a country, we need to make sure that we have proper policy. As it has been alluded to, people who have no money have a lot to spend, but people who have a lot of money know how to spend that money. They have priorities and, therefore, they have no opportunity for wastage. Maybe, that is the secret between the rich and the poor. This is because the rich know how to appropriate their money properly while the poor think that they have too much around. That also raises the questions that we have been asking ourselves about the budget-making process. You will find that most of the budgets that we approve in this House are actually wish lists of civil servants who want to find ways of stealing money from public coffers. One of the ways of doing this is through foreign travel, where you enjoy yourselves and you also get huge per diems. This is not a priority. This Motion really speaks to the fact that--- The other day the Auditor-General pointed out how we waste our money and he proved some of us wrong. If you look at the Budget of Kshs1.6 trillion, you will find that it is another big wish list of civil servants. If you look at the money that was spent in the last financial year, you will find that it was only Kshs920 billion. People should not find excuses in issues of absorption. The thing is that our budget-making process is inflated, and it is inflated to benefit only a few. The process creates billionaires and beggars; it is the beggars who finance the large lifestyle of senior public officials. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, with those few remarks, I beg to support this Motion."
}