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"id": 998519,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/998519/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Bondo, ODM",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Gideon Ochanda",
"speaker": {
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"legal_name": "Gideon Ochanda Ogolla",
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"content": "Hon. Speaker, I want to support the Report but, at the outset, I want to indicate that many of the problems that we have here is because of the National Treasury. Last time, there were complaints about reports not having been tabled on time and Members not being able to see some of these things. I think the biggest problem is the National Treasury. That is one thing that needs to be checked. The time it takes between the publication of the Estimates, basically within this month, there are a lot of activities. Most of those activities are not going on procedurally or properly because of the National Treasury. Departmental Committee Chairs are getting it difficult because of the back and forth movement in terms of changes that are proposed from time to time by the National Treasury. Even today, one of the complaints that we have in terms of the Report not being in place is because the National Treasury was coming up with changes on Thursday in the afternoon, and it was going to be very difficult for that to happen at the same time. So, I think the National Treasury needs to be checked in terms of the roles it plays in the budget-making process. It is making us look bad! It is making the life of Parliament very difficult. Last year, we reached a point where we were looking so bad to an extent of having the Judiciary go to court. It is like a court going to court for a decision. I think that was a precedent that might have not been realized anywhere. Hon. Speaker, there is the issue of economic stimulus. If you look at it, we have Kshs50 billion that is going towards the economic stimulus package that is proposed here. If you look at it, the National Treasury did not have any idea about this. They were prompted. This money was prompted by the Committee. After the prompt, the National Treasury came in with all manner of things. If you look at some of them, in my view, they are going to be a problem to this country. There are people who have lost jobs. There are also problems of the youth, who do not have jobs. However, in the economic stimulus package, we are providing money for purposes of stimulating the informal sector. A sum of Kshs3 billion was set aside for making desks and chairs for schools, beds, cleaning drainages and all that. If you look at all these things, where is the sustainability bit of it? Are we creating jobs for the young people to work for three months and then, thereafter, throw them out? What does that mean to the country? I think these are questions that need to be asked. So, there must be a way in which when we create a portfolio for purposes of getting money to support the youth and the informal sector, there is need to be an arrangement on how this is supposed to be sustained. If you do it in a manner that it works for one or three months and thereafter there is no money, even if you are making beds and desks for schools, cleaning drainages and stuff like that, at the end of it all, you will be throwing a much more larger number of youths from their jobs and you do not know how to sustain them. Hon. Speaker, the other thing I wanted to bring up is where we are going to place the issue of contingency and emergencies. We have new scenarios that many times are not anticipated in the name of emergencies. It has been mentioned here that, for example, in the Lake region, we are now experiencing reverse flooding. We have known that flooding takes place many times from the waters in the higher areas going down to the lower areas. But in the Lake region, we are experiencing both; one from the river but a much more serious one is from the lake itself. This has submerged good amounts of land and the economies of that area. All our landing beaches are down. For the lake water to go down, it may not be like the river flooding that we are normally used to. It may take two to three years for water in the lake to go down, if the situation we are in does not change. What happens? It means that we are talking about an emergency that is going to be permanent. How do we handle it? So, I think it is time that departments that handle issues of emergencies in this country look at what happens to situations that emerge and yet, they are likely to run on for a long period. An example is the reverse flooding that we have in Lake Victoria 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."
}