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{
    "id": 956326,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/956326/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 173,
    "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": "time we review Estimates in April all the way to towards the end of June being the time we approve the annual Estimates and we put in a lot of work in reviewing and approving those Estimates, we need to do more. We fail during the post-Budget period. That is why, together with the Liaison Committee, we thought it is important to have this post-Budget conference. We have realised that there is a huge gap in how Parliament, through its Committees, oversees the implementation of that Budget. It is instructive that we are in the third month of this Budget or the last month of the First Quarter of this Financial Year. Many Chairs of Committees and Members of this House will tell you that the implementation of our development budget expenditure is almost at zero per cent towards the end of the First Quarter. That should be a matter that is of concern to MPs and the country at large. Our people are complaining about unemployment and not having money in their pockets. Considering that the Government is the single largest consumer of goods and services, this can only happen if we are able to roll out development projects and our development expenditure is going into projects that will invigorate the economy to run for there to be liquidity in the market. Even creation of jobs comes through implementation of development projects, not just recurrent expenditure. I am aware that we will pass the County Allocation of Revenue Bill in the coming few weeks, as you mentioned earlier. I hope it will be before us by tomorrow. We have already created a gap of Kshs6.5 billion in our Budget Estimates. That is from what we passed in the Division of Revenue Bill or adopted last week. Let me take this opportunity to thank His Excellency the President for assenting to that Bill, the right version of the Division of Revenue Bill with the correct date of 1st July, not the other one - the altered one from the other House. I thank the President for assenting to the right version of the Bill. That hole of Kshs6.5 billion may necessitate cuts in our Budget Estimates as we passed in April. It is important for Chairs and Members of the Departmental Committees to check that. As we have raised concerns in all our budget reports, in the last two or three successive years, they should ensure that budget cuts do not affect the development votes of our Budget. They should make sure we truly focus on the recurrent expenditure because there is still a lot of wastage. Why am I over-emphasising on the issue of oversight of budget implementation? We have talked today on issues to do with the Punguza Mizigo Initiative and other referendum issues or other endeavours to change the Constitution. One of the principal targets by members of the public out there is Parliament. Why do we become a target? Various times as we transact business here, we have said it will not help even if you were to completely do away with Parliament as an institution. We have some other forms of democracy that do not have elected representatives. We probably would save only 1 per cent of our Budget. With this Division of Revenue Bill, our counties are consuming about 30.5 per cent of our revenues. Therefore, almost 70 to 80 per cent of our Budget is in the national Government. We get bashed by the public because we have been given a key responsibility as MPs to oversee that very huge budget in the hands of the national Government. How well we are doing that is the question that begs for an answer. That is why I am asking MPs, especially through our Committees, to indeed take up the role of oversighting our Budget, after approval, more seriously than we have been doing. Failure to do that, we will continue being accused that we are gobbling up a lot of money which is only 1 per cent. As I said, we would only save probably 1 per cent of our national Budget if you did away with Parliament. The very huge percentage of money that is being wasted in Government, in the national Government, is because we do not offer meaningful oversight in our Committees, 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."
}