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{
    "id": 676961,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/676961/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 205,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Mulu",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1955,
        "legal_name": "Benson Makali Mulu",
        "slug": "benson-makali-mulu"
    },
    "content": "that even as we do the financial monitoring of our budgets, it is important we monitor the non- financial aspects of the Budget. We have shifted to programme-budgeting. That means we are more on outputs, outcomes and the targets we achieve. As a result of that, we will compare money spent against the output. In that case, you can have a fairly good assessment of the Budget. This is very important and will help this country in monitoring the Budget. Clause 32 is tied to Clause 1. The county assemblies have been given the mandate to authorise the thresholds of borrowing, the way we do at the national level. County governments will not just borrow. They will have thresholds on how much they can borrow. Out of these amendments, Clause 33 is the most important. It introduces what we call the “Treasury Single Account”. You will realise that counties have separate accounts in the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK). We are given the balance in those accounts. At times, you will find the balances are in billions. The Government has billions in the CBK through county governments. However, it cannot access that money. It ends up borrowing money from commercial banks at very high interest rates while it could use this money. The county governments could get the money when they are ready. The issue of single treasury account is very important for this country. It is going to help us. I wish I had more time, but let me conclude. The element which we need to bring in this Bill in terms of amendments is the issue of how we manage money collected at the county level. Counties collect money every time, but there is a kind of dark area in the way we manage that money. We need to come up with a law that can take care of the dark area we are talking about. The other area is the issue of re-voting their budgets. Some Governors have become very lazy. They do not spend money every financial year and they want to re-vote. They take advantage of the fact that they have that window of re-voting and yet Kenyans are not getting value for money. That is another area we need to see legislation so that implementation takes place even as we allow them to re-vote. I support this Public Finance Management (Amendment) Bill. Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker."
}