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{
    "id": 553549,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/553549/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 103,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Kaluma",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1565,
        "legal_name": "George Peter Opondo Kaluma",
        "slug": "george-peter-opondo-kaluma"
    },
    "content": "Hon. Speaker, I have not been of my full health. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to address this matter. I am actually not agitated. I am in some physical pain. The budgeting function and oversight over Budget is a function of Parliament through the various constitutional provisions, running from Article 93 down to Article 96 of our Constitution. The issue that has been raised is very important. In fact, the first thing we want to question is the role of Departmental Committees, if any, in the budgeting process. I beg that in your Communication to the House, this be properly clarified. It is not a challenge coming from the Departmental Committee on Defence and Foreign Relations. However, Departmental Committees get so hurt. It is not pleasant when you sit with a Government department falling under your charge to discuss taxpayers’ money and then when you do a report and recommendations the Budget and Appropriations Committee thinks they are nothing. My view is that the budgeting function is a role for Parliament, and not a role of the Budget and Appropriations Committee. In fact, the Budget and Appropriations Committee merely facilitates Parliament as a whole in the budgeting process. So, there is no superior power that the Budget and Appropriations Committee has in this matter, or that is unique to them. Hon. Speaker, may I also request you, as the good Chair, to find time in the Communication to rule on how Parliament, in a presidential system in particular, should engage other organs and arms of Government. I was shocked, and I regret it, when I heard our able Chairman of the Budget and Appropriations Committee say that it is a normal thing for him to engage the Executive on matters of parliamentary business. Is it as the Chair of the Committee? As a leader I can engage the President and the Chief Justice, but in the official functioning and the official actions of Parliament, I believe the Constitution is clear. Communication from Parliament and engagement between Parliament, as an organ of Government, and other organs of the Executive, is the business of the Speaker. I do not want to pre-empt what you will decide, but I think it should be said that if a committee finds itself in the situation the Committee on Budget"
}