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{
"id": 975468,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/975468/?format=api",
"text_counter": 236,
"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": "In line with the fiscal consolidation efforts by everybody in the Government, including the Executive, as the Leader of the Majority Party, the Leader of the Minority Party and myself, have mentioned, the Executive has cut its own budget by almost Kshs200 billion in terms of expenditure cuts. Considering the heavy requirements that we need and the challenges, as I have mentioned, on the global outlook of the economy and climate change, locusts invasion, coronavirus and the antecedent consequences that we have to our revenues, we had anticipated as the Budget and Appropriations Committee that we will ask the National Treasury for more. Looking at the request that came from the departmental committees, we had a request of about Ksh104 billion extra, which was way above the ceilings that had been provided in the BPS. For Parliament, besides the Kshs36 billion that was provided, the PSC came to us with a request for Kshs54 billion. That is Kshs18 billion above the ceiling that was in the BPS. For the Judiciary, they had a request of Kshs37 billion which is almost double of what was provided. Therefore, we had looked at the needs to ensure that every arm of Government is able to cater for its salaries, wages, allowances and usual expenditures, and able to sustain themselves to be productive in the economy. For Parliament, we assured them that they will complete their office block. On Judiciary, we gave them adequate resources to complete their ongoing projects. I am aware that there is a World Bank funded project that we brought back in the Budget for FY 2019/2020 for the Judiciary that is helping them to complete some of their ongoing court projects. For Parliament, there are resources that were provided for this year, but we wanted to make sure that normal repairs and maintenance are well catered for. We, therefore, proposed, as the Budget and Appropriations Committee, increments and proposed - as you will find in the Report - that the gap that will have been created of Kshs7 billion be catered for through reprioritisation from the Executive’s budget. In other words, we were asking the National Treasury to increase the ceilings for Parliament, Judiciary for public participation initiatives and cut further from the Executive beyond the Kshs200 billion that they had cut. It became apparent that it will not be possible because of the huge cuts that had been taken. As I mentioned, there were concerns that we have even cut development expenditure. Therefore, that will mean that you further cut the development expenditure from the national Executive and aggravate a bad situation. That will further compound the problems that we have talked about like the coronavirus, locusts and low revenues. Therefore, that will mean that we cut another Kshs7 billion from the development expenditure."
}