Dr. James Nyikal

All parliamentary appearances

Entries 551 to 560 of 3161.

• 18 Jun 2020 in National Assembly: Hon. Speaker, thank you. view
• 18 Jun 2020 in National Assembly: Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, for giving me this opportunity. Let me also start by appreciating the work that the Committee has done because this Finance Bill is coming at a time when we have a very serious economic challenge arising from the pandemic. So, we are in a situation where we actually have a big budget deficit, so, we need to get taxes so that we can bridge the gap. At the same time, we must struggle so that we do not overburden our people who are already overburdened by the effects of the pandemic. So, I appreciate ... view
• 18 Jun 2020 in National Assembly: On Income Tax, it exhibits the contradiction we have. We have a big Budget and still we do not want to overtax our people because they are burdened. It is good there is the lower level of taxation which has been removed and raised so that many people are removed from the tax bracket. That is a good thing that I support. Increasing the limit for payment on rental income so that people pay a little less is something good. I support it. But at the same time, we are removing the incentives for home owners. As I was saying, ... view
• 16 Jun 2020 in National Assembly: Chair, I notice that under these programmes on Vote 1092, there is road safety. But on Vote 1021, there was also road safety. Somebody could probably clarify why these identical programmes are in two different votes and how they are harmonised. view
• 16 Jun 2020 in National Assembly: Thank you Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker. Following on the same, this is an issue of devolution. This is because there are two functions there. There is water where the major services are at the national level, while distribution is at the county level. There is agriculture where irrigation is being managed at the national level to a large extent but, the actual agriculture of dealing with the farmers is at the county level. What needs to be addressed is the harmonisation of those two major programmes and the monies that are going into the same functions, but at different levels. ... view
• 9 Jun 2020 in National Assembly: Thank you, Hon. Speaker, for giving me this opportunity. Let me start by appreciating the Committee’s work and the fact that this time, when committees were looking at the budget proposals, we did not have a plenary. That is why committees were able to work into greater amount of details. This Report was brought here today with some amendments, which I support, which are to do with public hearings, economic stimulus and the money for supporting COVID-19 programmes. It also looked at flood-prone areas. I want to point out one area that experiences flooding every year. We really must find ... view
• 9 Jun 2020 in National Assembly: huge. It is almost half our budget. Of this, I am told, 51 per cent is interest. We must look at this. That is still excluding our pending bills. So, we must look at the budget carefully. In my mind, we are likely to have Supplementary budgets. The other danger is that we may find misuse of funds in expenditures that were approved here. I know the situation is dire, but we must really avoid that. view
• 9 Jun 2020 in National Assembly: One thing I need to talk about very seriously is the issue of the COVID-19. It is a new virus that nobody knows how it behaves. It looks like it is behaving differently in Africa. Maybe God is on our side, but the data is not clear yet. A lot of money has been allocated to tackle it. I know we have the COVID-19 Fund. We have allocated Kshs5 billion to the counties to prepare themselves. view
• 9 Jun 2020 in National Assembly: Two dangers that we must look at are that we may spend so much money, rightly, of course, to prepare, but in my view, the strengthening of the health systems going towards the Universal Health Care (UHC) must be looked at. We must spend money in such a way that the preparations we make and the facilities we put in place, later on when the pandemic is over, we can put them into use and make UHC a reality. view
• 9 Jun 2020 in National Assembly: Every time, we talk about strengthening and reforming the National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF), but there is one thing that this country has not accepted to say. When we effect the UHC through insurance, we must look at mandatory insurance at the same time support indigence and people who cannot afford it. That is the problem we have. What do we do to people amongst us who need help at times? So, that is important. If we can pay for indigence, then everybody else must have mandatory insurance. That is the only way we are going to get UHC through ... view