Prof. Sam Ongeri

All parliamentary appearances

Entries 1041 to 1050 of 1925.

• 27 Feb 2019 in Senate: Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, there is something that the national Government is forgetting that when the Division of Revenue is done by this Senate and also in concurrence with the National Assembly, that county governments make commitments made on that division of revenue that has already been allocated in the books. How are you going to tell them to adjust their books in this belated hour, if you are going to reduce that budget by Kshs9 billion? view
• 27 Feb 2019 in Senate: That is why I want to persuade my colleague in the Senate, if there is one thing that we must resist with both sides and in one voice, it is any attempt to reduce the revenue allocated to county governments. If they want to reduce, let them reduce it at the national or Executive level but never to touch on the revenue which has already been allocated to county governments. It is on the basis of that revenue that they have made commitments. We do not want to have another story of pending bills developing later because of our own ... view
• 27 Feb 2019 in Senate: Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, my serious recommendation to the national Government is to adjust the national Executive expenditure and bring it in line so that the county revenue allocation should never, I repeat, should never be touched. If anything else, it should be increased from the regional one. I like the way and the process that has been taken by the Committee on Finance and Budget, that we must take into account the inflationary trends. Without taking into account the inflationary trends, then even if we were to give Kshs310 billion, it is peanuts. view
• 27 Feb 2019 in Senate: I sit in the County Public Accounts and Investment Committee (CPAIC). Unfortunately, when you look at the way resources flow to the county governments and study it carefully, it will hit you very hard that, in fact, there has never been any single increase in the resource allocation in the counties. They started with 15 per cent and came down to 10 per cent. What are we doing here? Are we not saying, “yes, we accept this The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the ... view
• 27 Feb 2019 in Senate: scenario?” Instead of upward trend and mobility, do we now want to accommodate the incompetencies through corruption and non-collection of revenue? We have given them tools of revenue collection, there is a Bill and an Act of Parliament that came through here – through the Public Finance Management Act (PFM) on how to collect revenue. We even went ahead and enhanced revenue collection by increasing the Value Added Tax, (VAT) on fuel to eight percent. If the policy mechanisms that they ought to have put in place to redress this non-revenue collection has failed, they should not visit that failure ... view
• 27 Feb 2019 in Senate: Yes, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, and as long as I get my minutes. view
• 27 Feb 2019 in Senate: In fact, thank you for that information. I was going to come to that level but when you look at the history of revenue generation, it has risen from Kshs1 trillion to Kshs1.7 trillion and Kshs2.7 trillion respectively. However, when you look at the allocation to counties, it is on the retrogressive path and as I have told you, from 15 percent to current level of four percent. This is why we fight for these resources to be allocated to the county governments. I also want to sound a very serious warning to the County Executive Committee members (CECs) that ... view
• 27 Feb 2019 in Senate: Finally, we cannot wish away the issue of corruption. It is here with us; it is rampant, on the increase and we can no longer pretend about it. Either we wake up and do the right thing or sink. I have seen countries like South Sudan, where, unfortunately, we now have an emergency declaration for one year, being harassed by the citizenry of that country about the pricing of food. We almost got to that level. Therefore, when discussing the Report on the maize scandal, it has a lot of meaning that we need to give effect in this budget. ... view
• 27 Feb 2019 in Senate: Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I thank you for giving me this opportunity because as the Senator for Kisii County I want to pronounce myself on the issue of the revenue allocation. I, therefore, support the Report; that not only should it be increased from Ksh310 billion to Ksh335 billion, but the conditional grants must also be increased. Instead of tying these conditional grants and being detected at source through the Medical Equipment Scheme, we should have a better approach as to how these conditional grants can be utilized in order to alleviate the problems that we see every day in ... view
• 27 Feb 2019 in Senate: The other element is that we must cut down on our borrowing. We have gone beyond the level that it will become--- view