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{
    "id": 959126,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/959126/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 504,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kibwezi West, Independent",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. (Dr.) Patrick Musimba",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1804,
        "legal_name": "Patrick Mweu Musimba",
        "slug": "patrick-mweu-musimba"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, for this opportunity to contribute to the Public Finance Management Bill. One, it is timely and, two, it is reflective of a changing landscape in terms of our devolution exercise in the nation and the passage of the 2010 Constitution. What is very important is the fact that the inculcation of Chapter 4 of our Bill of Rights has come under threat under this impasse that has been posed during this Division of Revenue Bill. As such, it caused a lot of anxiety around the country as to the measures we are taking in terms of ensuring that services do not come to a halt. We need to expound and revisit the fact that a country as a going concern cannot be basing itself on the possibility of borrowing. We are busy passing budgets on the basis that I earn Kshs100,000 but I am budgeting for Kshs200,000. We are perpetually budgeting for money that we do not have. We are budgeting for borrowing. In the event you have a year of a downturn like we are experiencing now around the globe - there is a heavy economic downturn - then it is not possible for us to meet obligations even if they are within the threshold of 15 per cent. This begs the question of the viability of county structures if they are not contributing effectively back into the kitty. Six years after the passage of the 2010 Constitution, and it is something which possibly the Transition Authority ought to have addressed from the beginning, is the potentialities in terms of geospatial surveys that should have been undertaken across the entire nation of building the revenue streams into the kitty of the central Government. This would ensure that we are not just bringing counties which become – for lack of a better analogy – a child who is receiving pocket money and does not have to account for it knowing that at the end of the year there is more coming through and all they have to do is keep reaching out and looking at the dad, which is the national Government, as to when he will undertake the disbursements. We need to have a conversation where it is about how to build and ensure Kenya becomes strong in terms of providence and us standing as giants."
}