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{
"id": 841563,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/841563/?format=api",
"text_counter": 479,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Cheruiyot",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 13165,
"legal_name": "Aaron Kipkirui Cheruiyot",
"slug": "aaron-cheruiyot"
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"content": "Madam Temporary Speaker, the point that I was trying to make is that the discussion that we need to have is; what is it that we shall do, as a country, in order to have more taxpayers instead of relying on salaried employees. That is the crux of the matter and that is where all this debate boils down to. Therefore, each time a budget is presented before us, as a legislature, that is the first point of call. I have seen so many ideas being proposed by the national Treasury, for example, the Housing Fund, where there is an additional 1.5 per cent levy. This means that our taxation will now have, on top of the PAYE, an extra 1.5 per cent without considering that some people have borrowed and their take-home is only Kshs1,000 to 2,000. We now want to deduct 1.5 per cent to build a house for other people, yet some of the people you are taxing do not even have houses in the first place. What a crazy and absurd idea? The truth of the matter that our budget is vendor driven. It is driven by people who have already cut deals with the national Treasury. They are, therefore, looking for the National Assembly to rubberstamp their idea and force Kenyans to pay taxes, and then they can transact business. We must stand up, as a legislature, and speak for the people of Kenya, who have been impoverished and made to suffer by these mandarins. Madam Temporary Speaker, the truth of the matter is that years down the line when things go wrong – and for sure they are about to go wrong – we will be challenged to explain what we did to help our people. Unfortunately, for those of us who are in the Senate, you will not hide under the Constitution and say that there was absolutely nothing that we could do about it. Our children will want to know whether we watched helplessly as the country went into public debt. If, in another 10 or 15 years, we are unable to pay the loans that we have borrowed from other countries, with the news we are reading, about China taking control of certain national institutions, what answer will we give? What will be our response? Therefore, I urge my colleagues in the Senate to put our heads together and consider what we can do. The beauty of it is that, I know that a part of the memorandum that has been sent to the National Assembly even proposes a reduction of the Kshs314 billion that we had sent to the counties. I want to be on record that I will never support the Division of Revenue Bill when it comes to this House. I can never support the reduction of money that has been sent to counties, because whatever we are sending there is already too little. We are in the September going to October, yet no single county has received a coin for development. Three months have been wasted and people are earning salaries. Why are you paying people salaries, yet they have not worked? Are you not defrauding the people of Kenya, if you are paying me money, as a County Executive Committee (CEC) Member, yet you have not given me the budget money to run the development programmes? The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}