Alfred Sambu

All parliamentary appearances

Entries 61 to 70 of 494.

• 3 May 2011 in National Assembly: THAT, this House adopts the Report of the Budget Committee on the Budget Policy Statement for the year 2011/2012 laid on the Table of the House on Wednesday 13th April, 2011 subject to deletion of the words “In this regard, the ceiling for the PSC for development budget should be Kshs.2.0 billion which is 0.62% of the national development budget” and insertion of the words “In this regard, the ceiling for the PSC for development budget should be Kshs.2.4 billion which is 0.65% of the national development budget” in place thereof; and inserting a new recommendation as follows:- “(k) That ... view
• 28 Apr 2011 in National Assembly: Mr. Speaker, Sir, I will start from where I left on the concerns and observations of the Budget Committee. On the shilling exchange rate, the Budget Policy Statement (BPS) asserts that despite the stable exchange rate exhibited by the shilling in the year 2010, this weakening against all major currencies in the first quota of 2011 is attributed to rising oil prices. view
• 28 Apr 2011 in National Assembly: However, it failed to spell out strategies that the Government used to maintain creditability in exchange rate regime. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker Sir, the public debt has hit 50 per cent of GDP. The focus of 2011/12 and medium term is reducing it to about 42 per cent of GDP. The Committee suggested that the public debt must be reduced to sustainable levels of not exceeding 42 per cent by 2013/14. Thus the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance should reduce the net domestic borrowing to sustainable levels, then provide for contingent liabilities. This is achievable with the concerted ... view
• 28 Apr 2011 in National Assembly: Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir. Number six, on deficit financing and public debt, the BPS does acknowledge that efforts and measures will be required to reduce debt and, particularly, domestic debt. The Committee supports the principle of reducing public debt. However, it is concerned that priority expenditures, including the implementation of the new Constitution, have not been factored in the Budget. view
• 28 Apr 2011 in National Assembly: Number seven is on resource allocation and criteria. It is a requirement under the Fiscal Management Act and the Standing Orders that the BPS provides the criteria to apportion available resources into implementing programmes and projects. However, the Committee did observe that the criteria--- view
• 28 Apr 2011 in National Assembly: Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the Report, itself, is very big. In fact, those are the highlights. These are the concerns of the Committee. But the actual Report, itself, as he has quite rightly said, has been tabled before this House. So, I am looking at the highlights and that is all. view
• 28 Apr 2011 in National Assembly: Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir. I would like to emphasize that I am not giving personal views. I am giving the views of the Committee. So, on resource allocation criteria, it is a requirement that under the Fiscal Management Act and the Standing Orders, the Budget Policy Statement (BPS) provides the criteria for apportioning available resources into implementing programmes and projects. However, the Committee did observe that the criteria provided by the BPS are too broad and unclear with no specification of total ongoing mandatory expenditures. For example, it does not show the total resources to be used ... view
• 28 Apr 2011 in National Assembly: Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, it is clear that the criteria given do not mirror what is envisaged in the Fiscal Management Act. The Committee recommends that there is need to work on certain areas that can be subjected to the unit cost. Further austerity measures need to be identified to curb expenditure on foreign travel, domestic travel, hospitality and rehabilitation. On the question of the in-year re-allocations, the Committee observed that the Budget Policy Statement does not give any administrative guidelines on in-year variations in the Budget. The Committee notes that there are no legal guidelines for reallocations, and ... view
• 28 Apr 2011 in National Assembly: Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, equally worrying is the slow pace of implementing the infrastructure flagship projects identified in Kenya’s development blue print, Vision 2030. The pace is slow in developing the following projects: Lamu Port, light railway line around Nairobi, standard gauge railway line, among others. Policies and actions towards development and distribution of alternative energy sources are not clear, yet this country has unpredictable water source to continue relying on hydro-power. However, hydro-power is expensive in addition to be being in short supply, thereby attributing to under-performance of useful programmes such as the Rural Electrification Programme (REP). The ... view
• 28 Apr 2011 in National Assembly: Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, as such, the Committee recommends that the Treasury grants Parliament an additional Kshs400 million to commence the project in the coming financial year. Having gone through the main concerns and observations of the Committee, I now turn to specific recommendations of the Committee. (a) Kenya, currently, faces a myriad of challenges; the compelling ones being the drought ravaging parts of the country, rising food and oil prices, unemployment, poverty and a growing domestic and national debt burden. The four mentioned issues are, indeed, extraordinary in nature and, therefore, call for extraordinary targeted policy interventions to ... view