Entry Instance

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

{
    "id": 797505,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/797505/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 182,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Mulu",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1955,
        "legal_name": "Benson Makali Mulu",
        "slug": "benson-makali-mulu"
    },
    "content": "The National Treasury ought to go an extra mile and tell Kenyans the implications of reducing the development budget and how it affects the development growth. They assume it will remain the same. I am imagining by the time we were doing the budgeting, there were assumptions but which could not remain constant when there are reductions in the development budget. As said earlier, the law requires clearly that when you do a Supplementary Budget, you do not change any of the programmes in terms of budget by more than 10 per cent. When it goes beyond 10 per cent, this House needs an explanation to approve that change. When you look at this budget you realise there are some programmes where changes have been done beyond 10 per cent but I do not think an effort has been made to explain to this House why those changes have been made. To me, this is another area we need to pick as a House and ensure that where changes are being done, there is proper explanation when more than 10 per cent of what had been budgeted for so that we approve what we know. The President yesterday talked about the Big Four Agenda. I thought because it came after we had done the Annual Estimates, this would be the time for those who do budgets in the Governments to start orienting the budget towards the Big Four Agenda. This was an opportunity to see more resources targeted towards the Big Four Agenda. But, when you look at this budget, instead of having more resources channeled towards the Big Four Agenda, we are reducing. What was very hurting was the issue of reducing money for roads when rains have caused such havoc to our roads. This budget has proposed that we reduce money for roads. These are some of the issues, as the Budget and Appropriations Committee we need to think about as we move forward. Unless proper explanation is given as to why this money should be reduced, we should be in a position to say no. We should push that those who implement can use this money because when they said they wanted this money in July last year, they had assessed their capacity to use the money. Are they telling us that their capacity has disappeared or what has happened for us to reduce this budget? The issue of abusing Article 223 has been well explained by my colleagues. I do not want to add anything on the land issue but the National Treasury ought to note that Members are more alert and will not allow expenditures to go through this House which are just being paid for yet they are not emergency in nature. This should be a lesson to the National Treasury, that before they pay, they must make sure whatever payments they make fit very well within Article 223 of the Constitution, which makes provision for the Supplementary Budget. You will realise in this budget there was an attempt to reduce the county governments’ allocation and I am happy it did not go through. The Division of Revenue Bill which we passed here last year was very clear. During revenue collection when we do not achieve the targeted figures, we should not change the county governments’ allocation. The only amounts we can change are those of the national Government. That attempt was very unconstitutional and should not happen in future. Once the Division of Revenue Bill is passed by this House, the figures for the county governments’ allocation should remain as they are not unless they are being increased. That is what the law says and we need to adhere to it. As I support the Supplementary Appropriation Bill, I want to talk about the CT scanners which have been mentioned by Hon. Mbadi. The Ministry of Health is proposing to get Kshs.1.7 billion to pay for the CT scanners. I want to repeat and emphasis what has been said before, Supplementary Budgets are not given for additional development programmes to only address emergencies. So, a situation like the big CT scanners project will cost about Kshs.8.2 billion. We The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}