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"id": 989169,
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mathare, ODM",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Anthony Oluoch",
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"legal_name": "Anthony Tom Oluoch",
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"content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, for the directions that you have given. Indeed, even as we deal with this health pandemic, the constitutional mandate of this House to debate matters as serious as the Budget must not be subjected to this kind of omnibus called “Standing Order No.95”. You have read the mood of the House correctly on this one. When it comes to matters of the Constitution and budget-making, there can never be a more important task and duty in this House than what we are transacting today. I want to make two points as I support this Bill. First, is in terms of what is going into social protection. I thank the Committee and the House for agreeing to forfeit some money that should have gone to the Parliamentary Service Commission for our foreign travel. We have agreed that this money should go towards ring-fencing our frontline health workers from the Covid-19 hazards, and that the oversight should be undertaken by this House directly. That is very important. Therefore, we support what the Leader of the Minority Party said about direct oversight. However, in terms of social protection, I wish we could add more funds and enhance oversight on the Kshs10 billion that is going towards cash transfers so that we can expand the bracket of who constitutes vulnerable members of the society. At the moment, when we talk about vulnerable people, there is a category of people in the informal settlements, especially youths who are unemployed. We need to know how we are going to protect those people if they are not benefitting from what we are putting together in terms of social protection. Lastly, on oversight, when we talk about the data, there is a duty for the Departmental Committee on Labour and Social Welfare to require that the data be published. Who are the beneficiaries of those funds? Are we using the data from the Huduma Number registration exercise that was conducted recently or the statistics obtained from the last census? If we do not, as a House, get these things done correctly, this could end up becoming another National Youth Service (NYS) scandal or Ruaraka land purchase scandal. My second point is on access to water. We have been told to wash our hands, wear face masks, stay at home and keep social distance. However, in informal settlements, like my constituency, there are lots of problems in terms of accessing water. I want to find out whether we have allocated enough money to the Ministry of Water so that we can have water storage facilities and boreholes. I want to find out whether we have allocated enough money to the Ministry of Water so that we can have water storage facilities, boreholes, tanks and other items. Last week, I had proposed an amendment to the Tax Laws (Amendment) Bill. In my interaction with the Leader of the Majority Party, he assured me that my amendment would be put in the Finance Bill. I hope this will be done so that, as we tell our people to wear face masks and wash their hands, they have water. Lastly, as my time winds up, I want to speak on the issue of mental health. Last year, I think the Departmental Committee on Health allocated Kshs100 million to Mathari Mental Hospital, which was removed. Let us take into account the mental health status of our frontline health workers, people in quarantine and those in isolation in terms of how we can protect the mental health of the nation during this time. I wish we allocated more money to Mathari Mental Hospital so as to expand mental health care to our people. My last point is on the Supplementary Budget as a means of budgeting. We must not replace the norm of budgeting through the main budgeting process with supplementary budgeting. This will encourage corruption, avoiding the main budgeting process and enter into a process of budgeting through the medium of Supplementary Budget. 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."
}