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{
    "id": 998512,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/998512/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 1462,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Funyula, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. (Dr.) Wilberforce Oundo",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13331,
        "legal_name": "Wilberforce Ojiambo Oundo",
        "slug": "wilberforce-ojiambo-oundo-2"
    },
    "content": " Okay. Thank you, Hon. Speaker. We are making a Budget within an unprecedented environment that has been thrust to us by factors beyond our control. Indeed, we did not generate corona. Corona visited us and now once the visitor is in the house, however a menace he or she is, you have to learn how to live with him or her until you find ways and means of kicking that nuisance visitor from our homesteads. Unlike the last financial year, there are so many uncertainties. Of course, many of us are worried that the proposals being presented here are unlikely to be achieved and that means there is going to be massive disorganization of activities and livelihoods in the country as we continuously adjust to the new reality in the way of supplementary budget cuts here and there directed to some other places. Let me also take this opportunity to thank the Budget and Appropriations Committee for the wonderful job they have done. Of course, there are issues of concern and I had expected that they would address them. Nevertheless, it is good to point them out. First, because of the pandemic and other factors, we seem to have directed a substantial part of our resources towards consumption as opposed to production. Many of us know if you do not produce, you do not expand well and you do not expand the economy. Nevertheless, we hope in the subsequent years once we have managed the pandemic, we will start shifting towards more production. The President has continuously talked of the Big Four Agenda and this is now becoming a tired song because, unless you fund it adequately, it is just going to be a song that is better sang probably in a church choir. It is inappropriate to commit all the funds to other sectors and forget to put funds in enablers to allow improvement of manufacturing and to allow development of housing; which are labour intensive and which generate employment and income. Going forward as a country and as a Parliament, save for the duty of making a budget, we must continuously interrogate the allocation of resources. I totally agree with the comments by the Parliamentary Budget Office that, with the reduction of VAT and other tax measures that we passed sometimes early this year, the revenue expected might not be achieved. The fear outside there is that the Government again is going to resort to heavy borrowing which is going to be detrimental to the local economy. We just hope the mandarins at the Treasury will now start to sit down and think critically on how to resolve the issue. 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."
}