Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 748294,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/748294/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 116,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Ng’ongo",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 110,
        "legal_name": "John Mbadi Ng'ong'o",
        "slug": "john-mbadi"
    },
    "content": "I had started by saying that Chapter 12 is one of the most comprehensive chapters of our Constitution detailing the processes of budget making. I want to go further and mention that we have an omnibus law in the name of the Public Finance Management Act which collapsed all the previous statutes that were dealing with public finance management in this country. Looking at this law and taking the sections that deal with the budget-making process, it is exhaustive, very simple and easy to understand. Today, we are dealing with a situation that could have been avoided easily if we followed the budget-making process as spelt out in law. First, the budget-making process starts in September. That is the time the Cabinet Secretary engages with the line Ministries and even makes forecasts. This comes a long way before the Budget Policy Statements and the Division of Revenue Bill. One would expect that we exhaust all the avenues provided for in law to avoid conflicts of whatever nature. As Hon. Nyikal mentioned, there is the IBEC which brings together stakeholders. This is chaired by the Deputy President and almost every individual, institution and body that is relevant in public finance sits on that Council. Our Chair of the Budget and Appropriations Committee is a member of that Council. The reason why the Senate is not represented on this body is that no one imagined that the Senate will be involved in the vertical share of revenue. That is my view and this is a position I have held consistently on this matter. That was not supposed to be a function of the Senate. I am fully aware that the Supreme Court pronounced itself through an advisory opinion, which we have to live with, that the Senate is to be involved in this matter hence where we are today - a stalemate between the two Houses. I want to say to the people of Kenya that going forward, a decision will have to be made whether we want to continue with the current arrangement where we have two sister Houses, which a lot of time, end up disagreeing on vertical division of revenue, or we revert to a system where we give, either exclusive authority to the National Assembly to divide revenue between the national Government and the county governments, or give the Senate a role, but give them a veto power if that is what we want. We cannot continue with a system as critical and important as the division of revenue and involve the two Houses and give them equal power. This will put this country into unnecessary disagreements. I have spoken here before and said that for now, the Jubilee side of both Houses has majority and we still have this stalemate. Assume we have a system where two coalition parties have majority in either House where say, Jubilee has a majority in the Senate and the National Super Alliance (NASA) has a majority in the National Assembly or vice versa, every year, we will always have a stalemate of this nature. I do not think that is very healthy for this country. As a country, if we want to have both houses - the National Assembly and the Senate - dealing with this Bill, we must give one House a veto power over the other."
}