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{
    "id": 545647,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/545647/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 121,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. (Prof.) Nyikal",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 434,
        "legal_name": "James Nyikal",
        "slug": "james-nyikal"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, hon. Speaker. I rise to second the Motion that has been proposed by the Chair of the Budget and Appropriations Committee. As our able Chairman has indicated, we found that there were some expenditure that were being proposed as extra expenditure that did not indicate where the source of the funding would come from. As we indicated, this is a great concern because obviously if there is no source of funding within the country, the only possible way is debts. This is a way of actually increasing the debts within the limits that we accept but they were not anticipated before. This is definitely not good for our economy and our planning. New expenditure in operation indicates that there is deficiency in planning. As our Chairman has indicated, we do expect that we have programme-based budgeting and with this, we expect that we will only allocate money for programmes that have been worked on, and are ready for implementation. Therefore, later on to come and spend more money on programmes that are new is actually not good. To this extent, the Committee stressed very much that, even the simple budget should be programme-based, complete with outputs and targets that were placed before. Therefore we can negotiate the good use of money. In fact, we are proposing in the ongoing amendment to the Financial Management Act that we should take this further, not only to programmes but even to work plans and procurement plans. If these are known in advance, it will make it easy for money to be spent as soon as it is allocated so that we do not have a problem of not using it. That relates to another issue of absorptive capacity. This has been spoken to before. I think this time as a Committee, we have gone on to look at another aspect of absorptive capacity; that is, what the Exchequer releases from the Treasury. Many times the absorptive capacity is based on the money spent as a numerator and the denominator being the estimates. The estimates do not indicate in any way whether the money came actually out of Treasury to go to the MDAs. So, we are now insisting that we also know when we are working on or discussing the issue of absorptive capacity, how much money was actually released. That has been very informative. Sometimes failure is actually on release. Sometimes it may be even possible that the MDAs did not make requests. So, we want to know whether the requests were made, or whether the release was made and how the money was spent. That is an important part that we are going to look at. The issue of salaries again; the human resource should actually be planned in advance. There is never an emergency. When we have to look for money midway because of human resource, then there is a problem. We did notice particularly in the health department what is happening with the changes that have occurred with devolution. There has not been very good appreciation of the complexity of the human resource and the various cadres; how they move, how they are paid and promoted. This 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."
}