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{
    "id": 908812,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/908812/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 306,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kikuyu, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Kimani Ichung’wah",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1835,
        "legal_name": "Anthony Kimani Ichung'Wah",
        "slug": "anthony-kimani-ichungwah"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker. Hon. Dawood’s one minute has now been taken away. But, in response to many of the issues which have been raised by Members, let me take this opportunity to first thank them for the time they have taken to scrutinise the estimates as tabled, go through the Report and respond to issues which are contained therein. I want to thank all the Members who have contributed for their invaluable input to this debate. A number of issues have been raised and one which I want to touch on is public participation. Many members have asked the criteria used to identify the counties visited and identification of projects. It is good to make it clear that we developed a framework towards the end of 2017 on how we will conduct public hearings. We have been following this framework as it identified, since the inception of the new Constitution, the obligation of the Budget and Appropriations Committee and, indeed, the House of holding public hearings. We identified all the counties which had been visited since the inception of this concept in our Constitution in the 11th Parliament. Last year, we visited 12 counties which had never been visited and we were left with about seven counties and one had never been visited. A total of 19 counties had not been visited since 2013 and last year, we covered 12 of them. This year we have covered six and we only remained with Tana River which is yet to be covered. Once we covered the six counties, we also identified another six counties which were last visited in 2013. Next year, we will cover Tana River County and another 11 counties which were last visited in 2014 and possibly 2015. Then we will repeat those which were covered in 2016 and 2017 before the lapse of this Session of Parliament. That is the criteria we used. On identification of projects, it is largely based on submissions by members of the public through public hearings. I am aware, as the Member from Kirinyaga County has mentioned, that some of the counties we covered last year, including Kirinyaga, had an entire budget line of Kshs1.2 billion. Remember, we have a budget line of Kshs100 billion per county which was taken away during Supplementary One. In the Report, Members will note that we have allocated Kshs2.4 billion which covers those 12 counties that were covered last year and the 12 that we have covered this year. The other issue that seems to have generated a lot of heat is that of reallocations by departmental committees. It is unfortunate that the House is rather empty at this time. People raise issues and walk out and do not listen to the responses and, therefore, are not well informed. The issues of reallocation proposed by departmental committees are very weighty. Largely, we endeavoured to agree with a number of departmental committees based on the facts that were presented to the Budget and Appropriations Committee through their Chairs and also based on the availability of resources within those departments. There has been an issue that has been raised by the Members of the Departmental Committee on Health. Many reallocations were done. It is important to point out where those reallocations were coming from because it is this House that adopted the Division of Revenue Bill earlier this year. The Division of Revenue Bill is still in mediation with the Senate. We are yet to conclude and, hopefully, we should be able to conclude this year. One of the reallocations that the Departmental Committee on Health had sought is the Kshs4.326 billion that has been appropriated in the Division of Revenue Bill going to Level 5 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."
}