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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Suna East, ODM",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Junet Nuh",
"speaker": {
"id": 2840,
"legal_name": "Junet Sheikh Nuh",
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"content": " Thank you, Hon. Speaker. Let me speak in English on this one. There is a very bad trend that has been happening in our country for the last one week. We have said more than once that it is only this Parliament that has the mandate of budget- making powers in the Constitution. The budget process begins sometimes in October in this House and when we come back from the long recess, the Cabinet Secretary for the National Treasury presents the Budget Policy Statement (BPS), which we discuss and that gives us the cornerstone and the foundation of the budget-making process. After that, the budget is divided into two in terms of division of revenue, namely, money is allocated to the national Government and the county governments. After that, the budget is divided among the three arms of the Government, namely, the Executive, Judiciary and Legislature. Once the money is divided between the national Government and the county governments - and you remember this time the way we haggled over money that was allocated to the county governments where we could not agree with the Senate and we had mediation more than two times - the money that has gone to the county governments cannot be touched once allocated. The same principle applies to the three arms of the Government; the Executive, Judiciary and Executive. Now the Cabinet Secretary for the National Treasury goes ahead to issue a circular telling the Judiciary that their budget has been slashed. He does not have those powers in the Constitution. Those powers are vested in Parliament. If he wants austerity measures to be effected, he can only negotiate with the Judiciary: That, our country is going through difficult times. How much money can you refund from your budget? Do you have excess money in your budget? Do you think there are programmes that you can postpone to the next financial year, so that we can get some money back to the Treasury to pay some loans or to do some things? But he cannot unilaterally make a decision and say that he has slashed the budget. Judiciary is an independent arm of the Government. It does not operate under the Cabinet Secretary for the National Treasury. As much as we want our country to develop, we must observe the cardinal responsibility of safeguarding our institutions. What this country needs are strong institutions. It is our responsibility, as the representatives of this country - people who have been vested with the sovereign power of the people - to make sure that the cardinal responsibility of protecting our institutions is protected, whether it is Parliament, Executive or Judiciary. So, I want to tell the Judiciary to talk to the other arms of the Government and negotiate. But they should not also, on the other hand, dramatise what is happening in the country. The same letter I am sure came to Parliament. Parliament has not stopped sitting. We are sitting 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."
}