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{
    "id": 956338,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/956338/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 185,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Tongaren, FORD-K",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. (Dr.) Eseli Simiyu",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 141,
        "legal_name": "David Eseli Simiyu",
        "slug": "david-eseli"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Speaker, for this opportunity. I would also like to add my voice in thanking the Chair of the Budget and Appropriations Committee for the statement he has given to the House. I belong to the Health Committee and the Chair of the Budget and Appropriations Committee has talked about monitoring and overseeing the agencies under our care. We do that diligently. And I am happy the Chair also acknowledged that the Committees worked very hard during the budget-making process, sometimes burning the midnight oil and even missing going to our constituencies. But when we presented our recommendations to the budget committee, none of them were taken up. In fact, one of the recommendations we had made was that some money was to be moved and put to paying personnel at Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH). This was refused. Recently, those health workers went on strike. I think the budget committee needs to give the other committees respect. When we have done all that work, we have monitored the Ministry of Health; we know what is going on there and we recommend this money be moved from here to where it is more necessary, and it is ignored that is bad. I think the outcome of what they are saying that they had very few Chairs is just an outcome of the fact that the Budget and Appropriations Committee ignores Chairs when they make recommendations to it. If the Chair of the Health Committee presents certain things that the committee has recommended vis-à-vis the Ministry of Health and it is ignored and ends up with almost a national catastrophe, that healthcare workers at KNH go on strike yet this is something that the Committee had overseen and we had put it in that Budget, then that is not good. Therefore, it is not good enough to say the Chairs have not turned up. I suspect they are demotivated because the budget committee ignores the recommendations of committees, at least from the point of the health committee where I sit. That is what we have faced. If that is to continue, then I am afraid it will demotivate us. Whatever we recommend and the budget committee does not take into consideration, then what are we there for? This is a budget-making House. It is not just a rubber stamp like the previous Parliaments. Under the new constitutional 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."
}