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{
    "id": 989127,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/989127/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 243,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Suba South, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. John Mbadi",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 110,
        "legal_name": "John Mbadi Ng'ong'o",
        "slug": "john-mbadi"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Deputy Speaker. As I support, if you listened to the Chair of the Budget and Appropriations Committee, you must have noticed he did not have much to say regarding the Bill. This is purely because the Bill is a reflection of the Report that this House passed. The exchange between the Leader of the Majority Party and the Chair of BAC is just to reinforce the provisions of both Articles 221 and 223 of the Constitution. It is clear that once this House approves the report on Supplementary Estimates, that report is supposed to be converted into a Bill. That Bill is then debated. Therefore, I do not want to go into the details of this Supplementary Appropriations Bill, because all the issues that are covered in it were discussed when we were discussing the report of the Committee. I just want to talk about two things. Number one is regarding provision of resources towards COVID-19. When we were discussing the report, what we received from the Treasury fell short of our expectations as a Committee. Only Ksh40 billion—now it is Ksh43 billion because we added Ksh3 billion—which was targeted towards the fight against COVID-19. What stands out in this Bill and in our report, is that a significant amount of money has been provided towards payment of pending Bills and also to help KRA pay tax refunds. That will help in stimulating economic growth, which is on its knees. Our economy right now is on its knees. With regard to the other amounts that are allocated to the fight against COVID-19, I want to again plead with the Departmental Committees. I have a problem that this House has not been giving enough attention in terms of oversight role. It is one thing to provide resources and it is another thing for those resources to be spent prudently, efficiently and appropriately. If you go back to previous parliaments—especially the 9th and 10th Parliaments—you will find robust reports from Departmental Committees on amounts appropriated under each budget line. We were holding Cabinet Ministers and Permanent Secretaries who were the accounting officers to account. Hon. Keynan is here. He will tell you that when he was chairing the Departmental Committee on Defence and Foreign Relations, we had a report in this House which indicted a Cabinet Minister and he left his job because of that report. But right now, since the beginning of this Parliament, I am yet to see any single report from the Departmental Committees indicting or exposing the rot in various Ministries. Do you want to tell me that since the 12th Parliament, the government has become so efficient that all the thieves have left government and that now Parliament appropriates funds and they are spent prudently? What I am trying to say is that, let Departmental Committees, which have the oversight responsibility, and the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) take their responsibilities more seriously, so that this House executes its oversight function. We have three main functions: legislation, representation and oversight. You can also add appropriation. As the 12th Parliament, we are not up to speed and up to standard on the function of oversight. Therefore, I challenge Hon. Sabina Chege, who chairs the Departmental Committee on Health, to oversee these amounts that we have allocated to the fight against COVID-19, whether they are resident in the National Intelligence Service (NIS). Quite a bit of money has been allocated to NIS, and we know the opaqueness of this agency. But again when we are convinced as a budget committee that this is in the interest of the security of this country, our role is to allocate money and expect the relevant Departmental Committee to oversee the use of that amount of money. That is what I wanted to say on this Bill, because we have discussed almost everything in this Bill. May you allow me to say that I know the Chair will bring some amendments, but the The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}