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{
    "id": 625879,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/625879/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 533,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Anami",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2773,
        "legal_name": "Lisamula Silverse Anami",
        "slug": "lisamula-silverse-anami"
    },
    "content": "schools. The Constitution of Kenya talks of free and compulsory education. In this BPS, I do not see any strategic approach towards achieving the objective of giving free and compulsory education. No resources have been allocated for educational infrastructure. How can we realise this free and compulsory education if we are not allocating sufficient funds for recruitment and promotion of teachers? When there is lack of teachers in schools, the option is for parents to employ teachers, who are usually not qualified. They will be idlers who are ready for temporary employment. They are not committed and that is a waiting period for them. Our children do not get quality education. At the end of the day, there is increased crime. So, we spend more money in employing policemen and in managing crime. Why can we not decide now that we are going to be loyal to this constitutional provision for free and compulsory education, so that we do not have children being sent away from school? This is a good document. It is an opportunity for us to give guidance and oversee what is happening in our countryside. If we want to have an enlightened society, we should seize the opportunity to provide sufficient funds, once and for all, for employment of teachers and then our children can stay in school. When children stay in school, the relationship between the children and teachers is enhanced and they will obviously do better. That way, we will produce better citizens who care about the welfare of each other and the future of our country. This Budget Policy Statement does not pay attention to revenue collection. Revenue collection is going down. Now we have county governments. How do county governments perform their role of revenue collection? There is a lot of wastage. Every programme in revenue collection has been politicised to the extent that people are exempted from paying tax, so that a few members of the county assembly (MCAs) or officials in the county governments can enrich themselves. The Budget Policy Statement must be comprehensive. We must address the issue of revenue collection. The Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) needs to explain why their collection of revenue has gone down. We need to seize the opportunity of this Budget Policy Statement to demand sufficient collection of revenue from KRA. We have concerns about people who are not paying taxes. Colleagues have already talked about pending bills. I agree with them on that one. There is also the issue about our natural resources. Our country is lucky to have a diversity of communities with a lot of attributes associated with them. We need to invest a lot of money in the culture and sports sectors. Every time, you will hear that we do not have sufficient funds in these areas. These are areas where we could get a lot of opportunities for entrepreneurship. We have great and talented musicians. Why do we get such products from other countries when we have an opportunity to produce even more? The balance between recurrent and development funding is skewed to the extent that we have more money projected for Recurrent Expenditure and less projected for Development Expenditure. We need to change this imbalance, so that we have more money provided for development activities than for recurrent activities. The issue of getting money without earning it is not good. That is what promotes corruption. The poverty amongst our elderly people is wanting to the extent that the Budget Policy Statement has set aside funds for the elderly people. But this is not uniform. Only a few elderly people are provided with the stipend. A majority of them are not getting it. We need to come up with a policy where all deserving elderly people are given the stipend. The stipend is skewed. There is no equity at all. We have committed ourselves in some programmes. We have an obligation, as a country, to participate in these programmes and partner with other governments, for example, in 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."
}