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{
    "id": 926476,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/926476/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 173,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Suba South, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. John Mbadi",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 110,
        "legal_name": "John Mbadi Ng'ong'o",
        "slug": "john-mbadi"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Speaker. When I see the circus around this Bill, I look back to 2013. I remember, immediately we passed the first Division of Revenue Bill under this bicameral system, I had my concerns about whether this Bill should go to the Senate for concurrence. I raised those concerns. Luckily, you agreed with me that this is a critical Bill that should not be subjected to mediation without an exit route in the event that the two Houses do not agree. In fact, if it was the intention of the drafters of the Constitution and the people of Kenya to subject this Bill to the bicameral system of legislation, then the people of Kenya would have included, in the Constitution, a method of coming out of disagreements between the two Houses. The County Allocation of Revenue Bill which to me has a lesser weight in terms of disagreement has a formula that is already agreed on before. The Bill which has little controversy has a safety net, there is a way out. To get out of disagreements between the two Houses, we require two-thirds majority for this House to overrule the Senate. Therefore, it pains me that we are in this situation because of a decision and interpretation that was made by the SC. However, I wanted to say that we have a responsibility as a House. We are the National Assembly of the Republic of Kenya. If there is stalemate, if there is confusion in the management of finances of the country, we are called upon to be sober and look for a way of coming out of it. I want to be very categorical because a lot of propaganda has been peddled out there that the National Assembly is not interested in giving more money to counties. Far from it. I want to say that counties need even much more than the Kshs335 billion that the Senate is talking about, that the CRA is talking about. Indeed, all the spending units, any spending unit in this country, whether it is a national Government Ministry, department or state agency requires more budgetary allocation. Whether it is a county government or a county institution, we require more budgetary allocation. However, the problem arises because resources are limited yet the demands on it are unlimited. That is why there is need to come together and prioritise and allocate resources in line with the priority that the country will come up with. That is why, probably, we could not have given the counties the monies that the CRA recommended, the money that probably the Senate wanted, the money that probably the counties want. It is because we reduced the budgets of all Ministries in this country. There is not even one Ministry which we did not reduce their request for allocation of resources. I want to speak to the Senate with utmost respect. They, sometimes, think we talk to them without respect. I do not think protecting the interests of counties is synonymous with more budgetary allocation to counties. It is not synonymous. There are so many things that go into protection of the interests of counties. We allocated Kshs314 billion in the 2018/2019 Financial Year. The first question I would want to ask the Senate is: How much out of that money actually went to the counties and was used in the delivery and provision of services? You do not need to ask for money and put it in the budget if it is not going to the counties to provide services. Out of the Kshs314 billion, by the end of the financial year and I have the statistics here, only Kshs229 billion had been utilised, meaning that Kshs85 billion out of Kshs314 billion had not been utilised by counties. The amount of Kshs34 billion was still at the Consolidated Fund (CF) of the National Treasury. The 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."
}