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{
    "id": 729426,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/729426/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 365,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "here that our revenue is Kshs1.2 trillion. So, I want to spend Kshs2.6 trillion. Simple mathematics will tell you that we are living beyond our means. The issue is not about wages. I have said several times, with all due respect, the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) and the executive must not mislead Kenyans with regards to the public wage bill. The figure is provided for here, Kshs36 billion, our public wage bill is over Kshs600 billion, and therefore, Ksh627 billion per year is 50 per cent of the revenue. I have ridiculed this many times. This information is incorrect. The figures that have always been taken by the SRC are intended to mislead Kenyans. I have said this as much even in the seminar we had with the SRC. They should stop misleading Kenyans. They should be talking about the national Government wage bill. That is what comes from the National Treasury. What you have here are payments to state corporations; salaries of state corporations that do not receive any cent from the Kenya Government. They are self-sustaining and sufficient. That is their money. You do not lump up all these figures to dramatize the public wage bill. The national Government wage bill is half of this. It is time that we stopped this entire story about the public wage being 50 per cent of the revenue. Saying that you want to save money through salaries of MPs is a joke. How much does Parliament get out of Kshs2.6 trillion? It is 1 per cent. It is about Kshs20 something billion. That is what the entire vote of Parliament is; development plus recurrent combined. How much of that is wage?. It is less than KShs10 billion. You want to tell me you will save billion from Kshs2.6 trillion and you are happy, if you scrap the entire Parliament wage. So, we are being, as the British say, penny wise and pound foolish. We always seem to take the little pennies you want to save and dramatize that. That is not the issue. If This Government wants to cut down on the deficit, there are many things they can do but most importantly is the public sector spending. You come up with lofty budgets; very ambitious budgets because you want to look and feel good as Government that you have got the best and biggest budget; each year you increase by Ksh400 or Kshs500 billion. You are also employing. As the Senator has just said, every day you employ people in administration and every Ministry, sometimes creating even new state corporations, not rationalizing the existing ones; there are over 300 to 400 state corporations. For heaven’s sake, why would this Government need a state corporation to run taxes or a state corporation to sell chicken? We have talked about it. The Government has undertaken to rationalize but again I think that has been pep talk. That is one of the challenges we have had. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, on the economic growth, the President said it is on average 5.9 per cent. I agree that the economy has been growing. However, one thing that this Government and the previous ones need to always know is what sectors of the economy we are talking about. What section of Kenyans does it entail? Our economy that is growing is the elitist, for instance, tourism and manufacturing. The growth from that sector does not trickle down to the ordinary man. If you look at the agriculture sector which accounts for 80 per cent of the employment in this country, has it grown in recent years? It has not. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate"
}