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{
    "id": 51162,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/51162/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 460,
    "type": "other",
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "From the outset, I would like to agree with my colleagues in the Back Bench that the Government must take this Session very seriously. Budget issues are very serious and without money, nothing can move on. If we cannot support the Budget debate, then I wonder what else is important to this country than the issue of money. This country cannot move without money. This includes the Bill that we are about to debate on the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, I appreciate the comments made by the Committee and commend it for a job well done. The BPS projects that in the 2011/2012 Financial Year the growth rate will be about 6.1 per cent during normal weather. I wonder what they consider as normal weather. We have been having recurrent drought in this country for the last few years. I consider that a very sweeping and careless statement. For that reason, I think the people in the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and Ministry of Finance should take budget issues very seriously. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, we are told that there is also poor performance of revenue, and yet year in, year out, the Government projects estimates beyond what they calculated last year. This encourages internal borrowing. In fact, the Report says that today’s public debt stands at 50 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). That is not sustainable. We must be serious in projecting our revenue collection and contain our expenditure to a level that we can manage. We do not want to indebt our future generations to figures that they cannot sustain. The Committee has highlighted some issues, for example, drought and famine. It says that drought and famine is here to stay, and yet we do not seem to be taking them seriously. We wait until everything goes wrong and then start talking about importing maize. People were about to die in my own constituency a few weeks ago. In fact, had it not rained for the last few days, we were about to lose people. Animals were lost. Nothing serious or out of the ordinary was done by us in the Government to see how we could save our people. We live in this country where one part of the population does not know about the other. I think we need to be serious and that is why technocrats are there-- - I was a technocrat and I think if I were the Permanent Secretary, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and Ministry of Finance, I would have sat here today to take notes of what the hon. Members are saying. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, there are, of course, issues of Economic Stimulus Programme which was introduced and it is only fair that we sustain it. We cannot start something and then discontinue it because of failure. Was it a public show? Those projects, as far as I am concerned, did contribute to the areas that they were implemented. We think that this programme should have been continued. I know that money will not be enough for the projects we want to do but if we have proper priorities, we only can do what is good for this country. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, we have heard a lot about the Lamu corridor. I, personally, think that we are wasting time on a project which is so massive and it cannot be sustained by the economy. We have the northern corridor. If only we did something about Mombasa Port, if only we really expanded that port; if only we put our road from Nairobi to Mombasa, all the way to Malava to eight lanes, the market is here. We have the DRC, Uganda and other countries. Why think of something which you actually cannot do?"
}