Hon. Members, I wish to introduce to you a delegation of Members of Parliament from Australia. The Delegation, seated at the Speakers Row comprises the following: 1. The Hon. Andrew Broad, MP; 2. The Hon. Luke Hartsuyker, MP; 3. The Hon. Tim Watts, MP; and, 4. The Hon. Graham Perret, MP. The delegation is accompanied by: 1. Her Excellency, Ms Alison Chartres – Australia High Commissioner to Kenya; 2. Mr. Jonathan Ball – Deputy High Commissioner to Kenya; 3. Mr. Christian Josiah – Staff, Australian High Commission; and, 4. Ms. Julia Searle - The delegation Secretary. Hon. Members, the delegation has been in the Country since 3rdJune, 2018 to meet with National Assembly leadership as well as to interact with their counterparts. On my own behalf and on behalf of the National Assembly, I wish to welcome them to the National Assembly and wish them fruitful engagements during the remainder of their stay in the country. Thank you .

Hon. Members, pursuant to the provisions of Standing Order 41, I wish to report to the House that I have received a Message from the Senate regarding its passage of the County Allocation of Revenue Bill (Senate Bill No.11 of 2018). The Message reads in part and I quote: “On Wednesday, May 30th 2018, the Senate considered the County Allocation of Revenue Bill (Senate Bill No.11 of 2018) and passed the said Bill with amendments. The Senate now The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor.

seeks the concurrence of the National Assembly on the said Bill in accordance with the provisions of Article 111 of the Constitution.” Hon. Members, the County Allocation of Revenue Bill is an annual legislation introduced in accordance with the provisions of Article 218 of the Constitution with the objective of equitably allocating the share of the national revenue amongst the 47 counties. The Bill stands committed to the Budget and Appropriations Committee for consideration. Standing Order 234 requires this House to consider the County Allocation of Revenue Bill within 10 days. In this regard, the Committee is directed to table its report on the said Bill within that period to allow this House ample opportunity to consider the Bill and unlock the budget process for the 47 counties in the country. I thank you.

Hon. Speaker, I beg to lay the following Papers on the Table of the House. Quarterly Economic and Budgetary Review Report for the Financial Year 2017/2018 from the National Treasury. Reports of the Auditor-General and Financial Statements in respect of the following institutions for the year ending 30th June 2017 and the certificates therein: a) Engineers Board of Kenya; b) National Land Commission; c) Kenya Ferry Services Limited; d) National Crime Research Centre; e) Ministry of Tourism; f) Kenya Ports Authority; g) Ministry of Health; and, h) Ministry of Mining. Report of the Auditor-General and Financial Statements of the Kenya Institute of Supplies Management for the year ending 30th June 2016 and the certificate therein. Thank you.

The Chairperson, Committee on Delegated Legislation.

Hon. Speaker, I beg to lay the following Papers on the Table of the House. Report of the Committee on Delegated Legislation on the Civil Aviation (Remote Piloted Aircraft Systems) Regulations, 2017. Thank you.

Very well. The Chairman of the Departmental Committee on Trade, Industry and Cooperatives, the Member for Kieni. This must be the Chairperson of that Committee. Does he have a deputy? Is he still trying to understand how to use the card? Your name does not show up.

Thank you, Hon. Speaker. Sorry, I do not have the Report. I will seek your indulgence that I do it tomorrow morning.

Tomorrow morning?

No, in the afternoon.

Tomorrow afternoon? The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor.

Yes, Sir.

Very well. The Chairperson of the Departmental Committee on Finance and National Planning. I have approved that Report. Hon. Limo.

Thank you, Hon. Speaker. I beg to lay the following Paper on the Table of the House. Report of the Departmental Committee on Finance and National Planning on the Tax Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2018. Thank you, Hon. Speaker.

Sorry.

Hon. Members, when we are busy transacting business, try to avoid coming in between as much as possible. You distract me also. Chairperson of the Departmental Committee on Lands. Is that the Chairperson, the Hon. Rachael Nyamai? The Vice-Chair, Hon. Khatib Mwashetani? Are they absent or not desiring to be present? Is that the case?

Hon. Speaker.

Who is this?

I want to represent the Chairperson of the Departmental Committee on Lands.

That must be….

It is Hon. Mishi.

The name that shows here is Mutua Mwikali.

Yes, it is because I do not have the new card.

Do you have the Report?

Yes, I have the Report. I want to table it on behalf of Hon. Rachael.

Proceed.

Thank you, Hon. Speaker. On behalf of the Chair of the Departmental Committee on Lands, I beg to lay the following Paper on the Table of the House. Report of the Departmental Committee on Lands on the Land Value Index Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2018. Thank you, Hon. Speaker.

Next Order. Who is the other? Is it the Chair of the Departmental Committee on Agriculture, Livestock and Cooperatives? It is the Vice-Chair, Hon. Wangwe.

Thank you, Hon. Speaker. I beg to lay the following Paper on the Table of the House. Report of the Departmental Committee on Agriculture, Livestock and Cooperatives on Warehouse Receipt Systems Bill, 2018. Thank you, Hon. Speaker.

Any other Chair of a Committee desirous of tabling reports on their consideration of the various Bills? Next Order.

Hon. Speaker, I beg to give notice of the following Motion:

That, this House adopts the Report of the Committee on Delegated Legislation laid on the Table of this House today, Wednesday, 6th June 2018 and, pursuant to the provisions of Section 15 of the Statutory Instruments Act and Standing Order No. 210(4)(b), annuls in its entirety the Civil Aviation (Remote Piloted Aircraft Systems) Regulations, 2017. Thank you, Hon. Speaker.

Next Order.

Who was on the Floor? Does anybody have a balance of speaking time? It is the last Chair of which Committee? The Chairperson of the Departmental Committee on Finance and National Planning. It is your chance.

Thank you Hon. Speaker for giving me this opportunity to contribute to this very important business of the House. Before I do so, I want to state very clearly that this is a budget-making House. Therefore, I want to really insist on the Members that this is a very important exercise where we should put a lot of energy to ensure that whatever is budgeted is going to work for the betterment of this country. It is going to contribute to the welfare of our citizens, especially now that the President has pronounced himself on four pillars. Therefore, all our energies should focus on ensuring that whatever we do in this Budget helps Kenyans to get better life and we do not regret in future. It is very sad that some of the times you find allocations in the Budget are not clear in terms of delivering the four pillars. My Committee oversees several State departments including the National Treasury, the Ministry of Devolution and Planning, the Commission on Revenue Allocation (CRA), the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) and the Office of the Controller of Budget. When we start this budget cycle, we pronounced ourselves on the Budget Policy Statement. The various MDAs and the departments clearly stated their programmes which are supposed to be enabled by The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor.

way of allocation by this Budget. This annual Budget is particularly very important given that it is the first Budget after the 2017 election. It was a very difficult period especially when we, for the first time, faced two elections in a row. I thank this House because we worked around it to ensure that proper funding was given for that election. In the spirit of working around and ensuring the country moves on, our Committee discussed this Budget. We made several observations which I want to bring to your attention. Let me start with the commission which we oversee, namely, the CRA. I want to state very clearly that CRA has new commissioners. We have stated very clearly to the commissioners who are now in office that they must move away from the approach the previous commission was following in terms of identifying marginalised areas. Issues of marginalisation are widespread. We want a situation where the Constitution is followed to the letter. This Commission is charged with identification of marginalised areas. The previous commission identified marginalised counties. We want a situation where in every constituency, there is even a sub-location which is marginalised. So, we are asking the CRA to change the policy and ensure that any sub-location or an isolated village which seems to be marginalised in the spirit of the Constitution, should be identified and funded. It was very sad that in the previous commission, the then chairperson shed tears when he and his commission visited Kitui County. He found people who were suffering, did not have food, classrooms and children were studying under trees. In the marginalised counties, Kitui is not included. It is actually a paradox, which we want to deal with in this country. In terms of policy changes, we recommended to the CRA that they move to the smallest unit of this country including a village. The allocation for this particular commission deemed inadequate, but we asked them to utilise whatever they earn. We recommended little increase for the purpose of working around change of formula. The change of formula is another thing which should be looked into. We should relook at the weight which is currently given in terms of reviewing the way we look at population, landmass and rethink whether we are allocating resources which are not going to resolve marginalisation in future. If you continuously allocate without looking back, you will find those counties which currently seem to be ahead of others being backward in a few years, and it will be very difficult to catch up with the rest. We are, therefore, recommending a policy change in the country in totality. The last one on this commission and you have realised, is that every time they always want to bring collision between the national and county governments. They look at the revenues, but not at the percentage growth in revenue vis-a-vis the allocation. They just allocate without critically looking at the capacity of the country to raise that particular revenue. This country must move away from the spirit of sharing the cake. All of us must be counted. We must also talk and put a lot of effort in the baking of the cake. The issue of calling each other and saying that we need to share should be something of the past. The way to go is for this particular commission to participate in recommending policies which will bring a lot of revenue to this country and, therefore, they should be thinking outside the box. The other commission which is very unpopular in this House is the Salaries and Remuneration Commission. We must move away from putting individuals into positions and when they assume those positions, they forget that they are in public office. They must do their work in good faith. The SRC is another commission that we do not understand. In the previous dispensation, we did not have it, but salaries were being shared in an amicable manner. Before the commissioners’ term ended, they had created a situation where when Kenyans heard of them, they thought of Parliament. They thought they are going to cut salaries of Members of The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor.

Parliament, and then Parliament would start fighting with them. We must have a country where when you are given a position, you move away from individualistic thinking and serve the country in good faith. What we remember from the previous commission is the cutting of salaries just prior to elections. We do not want such a thing to continue. This time round, we must have a commission which is made up of good men and women who are ready to serve the country, who are not going to give promises from one financial year to the other and say they are doing job evaluation year in, year out. As we pass the names of the commissioners, I want to urge Members in this House to look at men and women of integrity who will not be looking at who is sitting where and using that leeway to award salaries. We must have a commission which is going to look not only at the technical makeup of your job but must also put a lot of weight on the social aspect of the job. We cannot have a situation where you look at a Member of Parliament and equate him to a civil servant who is sitting in the office. You must look at the job content and its weight. My Committee also supported a very important aspect of this House and this country. The only development that we see in the rural areas is by the NG-CDF, which was set in good faith before the county government was set up. The Departmental Committee on Finance and National Planning recommends that funding in this country must be overseen by us and ensure they work in tandem with how the NG-CDF has been working. This particular Committee looked at the overall allocations and we agreed that most of the allocations were in tandem with the plans of the various departments and commissions in the Government. Let us support the areas which are going to make a difference in this country. Because of time, I am going to request the Members to…

Very well. In terms of the Motion passed yesterday, we had indicated that the Chairs of the various committees were to be given the first chance to make their contribution to the Report of the Budget and Appropriations Committee. At his request, the Chairperson of the Committee on Defence and Foreign Relations indicated that on account of unavailability today, he will be making his contribution tomorrow, because the Motion is scheduled to go on for three days. Therefore, the Motion is open to the rest of you, but priority in speaking as usual, is given to the Leader of the Majority Party and the Leader of the Minority Party if they desire to contribute now. The Leader of the Majority Party, do you want to contribute now?

Hon. Speaker, I want to contribute last, just before the Mover is called upon to reply.

Hon. John Mbadi.

Hon. Speaker, I can make my contribution now. I wish to take this opportunity to contribute to the Budget Estimates for 2018/2019 Financial Year. As a Parliament, we have an oversight role on the Government in ensuring that the Government delivers on its mandate to the people. Allow me to point some few key issues in the Budget of 2018/2019 Financial Year, bearing in mind that this is the Budget where the Government has a very ambitious plan of implementing measures that would help us actualise the now famously referred to as the Big Four Agenda. I want to start with the basic, but very critical in the sense of compliance to the law. I want to point out that the budget process is guided by various laws one of which is the Constitution of Kenya, more particularly in Chapter 12 of the Constitution which talks about the Public Finance Management (PFM) Act and, of course, the PFM Regulations. A review of the The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor.

documents that have been submitted by the Cabinet Secretary responsible for Finance indicates that the compliance to the various statutes has not been fully achieved though some commendable efforts have been made by the National Treasury. The PFM Act requires that the ceilings which we approved when we were processing the Budget Policy Statements are adhered to and respected. There is the reason the BPS is prepared in advance before the Budget Estimates are prepared.

This is supposed to guide the budget making process. The Executive needs to be cautious when preparing the Budget Estimates. It needs to be synchronised with the Budget Policy Statement. But when you look at the Budget Estimates and compare with what this House passed in the BPS, it is very clear that there are very many areas of variance and there is non- compliance. However, the law requires that when there is a variance or the Estimates differ from the BPS, the National Treasury should submit a memorandum which would explain the reason those deviations became necessary. However, for the first time, we want to commend the Treasury for bringing memorandum explaining the reasons there is a variation between the BPS and the Budget Estimates. However, some of the reasons that have been advanced for the deviations could have been foreseen at the time of preparing the BPS. Therefore, it does not make sense at all why these adjustments that are now coming late in the day during the preparation of the Budget Estimates were not captured at the time of preparing the BPS. I have in mind, for example, the issue of collection of A-in-A, which we have been talking about every time we debate the Budget Estimates. We have been very clear that A-in-A, the way it is captured in our records, the way it is put in our Budget, does not enhance accountability. Therefore, we expected that this time round, this would have been foreseen and presented the way we wanted it to be done at the time of preparing the BPS. But what we have seen is that the Treasury waited for the Budget Estimates to capture the A-in-A collections. Another key issue or area of compliance is that the estimates of revenue allocated and expenditure for the Equalisation Fund for 2018/2019 was not submitted to Parliament as required by law, even though there are indications in the budget proposals that the Fund has been allocated Kshs4.7 billion. There is no explanation as to why this requirement of submitting revenue allocation and expenditures for the Equalisation Fund was not submitted by the Treasury. But more fundamentally, the Equalisation Fund is a requirement of the Constitution and, therefore, the National Treasury must provide the amounts based on the percentage that is provided for in the Constitution. The Kshs4.7 billion provided for is not in compliance with and does not conform to the 0.5 per cent that the Constitution talks about. In efforts to ensure transparency and public participation in the Budget preparation, the PFM regulations envisages a situation where a simplified mwananchi budget is prepared by the National Treasury and, perhaps, posted on its website so that Wanjiku can understand and engage with the Budget. But this publication is not there. Public participation in budget-making process is a constitutional requirement. Budget is not just prepared for finance experts. It is not just prepared for accountants and economists. It is also prepared for mama mboga on the street. We expect that the Treasury needs to prepare every financial year a simplified mwananchi budget version, a version that every person would understand or at least an average person would understand. On the other key Budget issues, the fiscal policy for the medium-term is aimed at fiscal consolidation to address deficit financing in order to reduce accumulation of public debt. This policy requires planned action to contain growth in expenditure and improvement of revenue performance. The fiscal policy direction of the country remains unclear as expenditure pressures The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor.

are likely to persist, leading to widening of the deficit if expenditure is not well controlled. I cannot overemphasise this point. If we do not control the expenditure pressures that we experience, if we do not contain the hunger by which MDAs are continuously increasing their expenditure requirements, this country will not cope in terms of financing the Budget. The net effect is that the country will continue to borrow money. This borrowing will come from either domestic sources or external sources. Of course, when the borrowing comes from domestic sources, there is the attendant risk of raising the interest rates because we will be crowding out the private sector. But again, even if we borrow money externally, of course, we are increasing the cost of borrowing. I will remind this House that if you compare the rate at which we borrowed the first Eurobond with the rate at which we are borrowing now, you will realise we are now borrowing money from the external market at a higher interest rate. This is because of our appetite for borrowing which makes our risk of repaying the loan higher and, of course, there must be a cost to it. On the revenue side, there is concern that the projected revenue may not be achieved given that the proposed revenue enhancements initiatives which the Treasury is coming up with are not new, hence we might not yield any extra much-needed resources as anticipated. I know the Finance Bill has not been tabled. I know we are yet to receive the CS in this House on 14th of June to present to us the Budget highlights and revenue-raising measures. We will wait for Mr. Rotich to come before us and tell us how he is preparing to finance the 2018/2019 ambitious Budget. Be that as it may, there are already indications that there are no much serious new sources of revenue. I want to move quickly because I can see I am pressed for time. I want to touch on a few areas before I sit down. This is on specifics. First, we must agree as a House that this country, because of the effects of the recent rains, there is a problem in terms of the infrastructure. Because our infrastructure has a challenge, the Budget and Appropriations Committee has decided to allocate to each constituency some money.

I will give Hon. John Mbadi two more minutes. I know you have a lot of passion for this. This is your area.

Thank you, Hon. Speaker. I will rush to finish the two points that I wanted to put across. I wanted to tell this House that contrary to what came from the Treasury, we have decided, and the Treasury was very reluctant, to allocate each constituency Kshs30 million for the maintenance of our roads, because there are no roads anywhere in the country. So, we cannot even say that we are going to look for those constituencies which have problems. All constituencies have problems with roads. We need to support this allocation. Finally, when the Chairman was presenting the Budget, he talked about 12 counties which the BAC visited during public participation. Some Members did not understand why some counties were picked and others not picked. The reason is simple and quickly I want to explain. We have 47 counties. We realised that the Budget and Appropriations Committee could not visit all of them. Therefore, we decided to divide the 47 counties by four financial years. So, this financial year, we decided to visit 12 and in the next financial year, we will do 12 until we finish them. We had to start somewhere. In fact, even my county is not among the 12. So, I want to plead with my colleagues that today it is another county, tomorrow it will be my county. We need to support the BAC. Thank you very much, Hon. Speaker. I support

Member for Isiolo North, Hon. Hulufo Oda. The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor.

Thank you Hon. Speaker for giving me an opportunity to contribute to this Motion. I would like to start by thanking the Budget and Appropriations Committee for the very thorough job they have done. As parliamentarians, our role of oversight is not limited to looking at expenditure, but rather we should be concerned about how projects are identified, as well as how allocation of available resources to prioritised projects is done. Thereafter, how Government ministries and agencies spend the money that they are allocated.

I am glad that for the first time, this Committee has indicated that the National Treasury is more forthcoming with information. We are coming from a situation where a lot of information was withheld from the members of the public and at times, even from the committee of this House which is supposed to scrutinise the Budget. In the Departmental Committee on Environment and Natural Resources, one key area that we identified as a gap is the Big Four Agenda and how resources are allocated to ensure that this objective is achieved. We realised that ministries are struggling to align their proposals with the Big Four Agenda. Therefore, I strongly agree with one of the recommendations in this Report that probably the Big Four Agenda needs to be introduced to this House as a Sessional Paper so that all the agencies and stakeholders are obliged to plan in accordance with it.

For example, looking at the universal healthcare without community health volunteers, it will be very difficult for this country to achieve what it intends to under this particular agenda. These people do not earn anything but are very key in ensuring that our people access basic healthcare. Unfortunately, as it has been highlighted in this particular Report, nothing has been provided to help motivate community health volunteers. Another important thing which has been captured in this particular Report, which I agree with although the amount allocated is not enough, is infrastructure development. Some amounts have specifically been allocated to ensure that the destruction caused to infrastructure in terms of roads and bridges are repaired.

Without infrastructure, it will be very difficult for us to realise the economic development we intend to achieve as a country. This is in order although the amount allocated is far much below what the Cabinet Secretary and Principal Secretary in charge of the Ministry of Transport, Infrastructure, Housing and Urban Development indicated they require to help rehabilitate the infrastructure that has been destroyed by floods, which have been occasioned by enhanced rain during the season which has ended. The Equalisation Fund is one of the most important elements in the current Constitution purposely put there to enable the marginalised areas catch up with the rest of Kenya. We appreciate that there are pockets of marginalisation in all counties. I would like to encourage my colleagues to appreciate that in as much as we have pockets of marginalisation in each county, there are counties where an entire sub-county is marginalised. As we try to urge the CRA to come up with a new policy to define marginalization, we need to be aware of the fact that there are counties…

Member for Makueni.

Thank you, Hon. Speaker for giving me an opportunity to contribute to this very important Motion. First, I want to applaud the Budget and Appropriations Committee for conducting public participation in accordance with the Constitution. Makueni county was picked and a team went to Makueni County headquarters which is also the headquarters of Makueni Constituency. The public had an opportunity to engage with this Committee and from the Report, I can see that out of the three main projects the wananchi gave to the Committee, only one was considered, namely, the Thwake Bridge, which is allocated Kshs150 million. The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor.

A very important road was proposed, but unfortunately, it has not been captured. Also, a Government housing scheme was also raised, which was started in the 1990s and was abandoned. I brought a Petition in this House concerning it, which was approved and taken care of. We appreciate that we cannot have all projects taken at once. The Ukia-Emali Road links several counties. I am pleading with the Government and the Committee to probably include this in the Budget in future. This road connects Emali-Wote-Masii and Kithimani, therefore one can easily travel from Loitoktok. It will be like a by-pass from Loitoktok to Embu or Nyeri through Thika while avoiding the main Mombasa Road. The people of Makueni proposed this road as a priority to the President during his campaign at a place called Matiliku and he promised us this road. It is surprising that it was left out. However, we appreciate the allocation for Thwake Bridge because many people have perished there during the rainy season. Also, the Governor of Makueni County, Hon. Kivutha Kibwana, had already started constructing it although it is a national Government project. However, I am happy that the national Government has taken it up. Also, during the recent rains, many roads were washed away and literally there are no roads in this country, especially the earth roads. Even most of the tarmac roads have been worn- out. I welcome the idea of Kshs30 million per constituency and, of course, we have the former Kenya Rural Roads Authority (KeRRA) which is now dealing with rural roads. They have officially gazetted roads, but it would be better if there was a strategy on how the Member of Parliament and the local team can identify roads which the county government has constructed so that the money can be used to repair those roads. We appreciate that the damage caused by the recent rains is equivalent to our one year’s budget and it will take many years to repair it. It is important for Members and their committees to conduct public participation to identify the extreme cases requiring repairs using these amounts. It is also important that the said money be released as early as possible so that they can serve the people of Kenya. You know, immediately after the Budget has been approved, it takes many months for it to be actualised. It can even take three or four months for the money to get on the ground, but the Kshs30 million for emergency should be applied as quickly as possible. Also, we always keep an emergency kit during the budgeting time. It is clear that when we have to apply it a lot of times like in this case, it is much less than what would be expected. So, I will request, if we could move fast, so that we can handle the emergency situations in the country. They are quite numerous and a lot of damage has been occasioned. I really thank the BAC for a job well done and for visiting my county and my constituency. I believe they were treated very well and they were very happy. I believe in future when they go to other counties, the same should happen. I thank you, Hon. Speaker.

Well, we make every effort to recognise every Member by their constituency. Next is special constituency Nominee 001.

Thank you very much, Hon. Speaker. From the outset, I take this opportunity to thank the BAC for such a good presentation on the Budget of the Financial Year 2018/2019 to this House. I must say it was an impressive presentation. I was particularly impressed by the reduction of the NYS funds from Kshs25 billion to Kshs18 billion. This is very The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor.

important because as a country and as a House, that is given authority by our Constitution to oversee the Executive, whenever we realise that there are loopholes of wastage of public funds, we should fire the first shot by reducing their budget. The reduction of the NYS funds was directed to the empowerment of our youth especially in training. We have realised, as a country, that we have invested so much on social protection strategies leaving out empowerment in terms of training of our youth. We have had the Youth Enterprise Development Fund, the Uwezo Fund and other funds that target economic empowerment of the youth forgetting that training the youth is more important than giving them cash or loans. Some of the resources were reallocated to the National Industrial Training Authority (NITA) so that we can train our youth in terms of carpentry, plumbing and electrical training. As a country, we have fallen short of some of these skills during the reign in which we concentrated so much on higher education and degree courses in university. We forgot about the middle level colleges. At the moment, this country is importing things like furniture from countries like China and the United Arab Emirates, which are located in the desert. It is because we lack the manpower. So, the reallocation of these funds to training of our youth is a very impressive strategy to empower our youth. According to the Constitution, Mr. Rotich will be in this House on 14th of this month to tell the House of the strategies of raising revenue to make sure that this Budget is fully funded. I also want Mr. Rotich to come up with strategies of making sure that the raised revenue is protected. If we do not protect the revenue that we raise from our citizens and we have mega corruption like what we have witnessed in the recent two months at the NYS, Kenya Power Company and the maize scandal at the National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB), we will raise a lot of money from the poor Kenyans, but still lose the money to corrupt cartels. We should put strategies in place to protect this revenue. I was also very much impressed by the allocation of Kshs30 million to each constituency for the repair of roads. We know we have had enhanced rainfall which has destroyed our infrastructure. So, it was very impressive to learn that we have allocated Kshs30 million for the repair of roads and other infrastructure. I am also a happy man because none of all those companies that were mentioned in the mega corruption scandals and all those cartels that were mentioned in graft are owned by a person living with disability. No company which is associated with a person living with disability was mentioned. Hon. Speaker, I seek your indulgence to give direction to ministries, departments and agencies of the Government to allocate more tenders to persons living with disability because they are very clean people. They are not corrupt. We have six million Kenyans living with disability and none of them was mentioned in the corruption scandals.

Hon. Members, you know under Standing Order No.1, the Speaker is allowed to make certain adjustments. I am going to do so with respect to the next Member who must not be interrupted. It is because, in this Motion, every other Member should speak for, at most, five minutes. In order not to deny this Member the opportunity to take full 10 minutes that he would have done ordinarily in doing a maiden speech, I would, therefore, extend to the Member a balance of five more minutes. So, you will speak for 10 minutes maximum. This is the

Member for Vihiga, Hon. Kivai Ogesi.

The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor.

Thank you very much, Hon. Speaker, for giving me this opportunity to speak in this House for the first time. From the beginning, let me say that as a first time Member, I have had challenges catching your eye. By now, I have learnt my ropes. I will know how to catch your eye when I want to. From the beginning, let me thank the people of Vihiga for electing me as their Member of Parliament. I give them my commitment to serve them with dedication. With every dedication in me, I will serve them. Let me also thank the party that sponsored me to this House, namely, the Amani National Congress (ANC). The party found it fit to sponsor me successfully to this House. Hon. Speaker, as you have indicated, being my first time to talk in this House, before I make my comments on the Budget, let me just make my comments on a few issues touching on the state of our nation. Let me start with the obvious one, the handshake. I really support the initiative as a first step. I think it is very important that when we want to bring people of Kenya together, we should have a lot of inclusivity. We should carry everybody along. We should not leave anybody behind because immediately you do that, you attract a bit of resentment. We are saying this was a very good first step. A lot of work still needs to be done and I will encourage everybody to come along and take up this initiative but not to treat it as an end to itself. It is not. About corruption, I think the war must be intensified. There are no two ways about it. I appeal to everybody who is involved to intensify the war. On the investigation side, we have the EACC. On the prosecution side, we have the DPP. Obviously, we have the Judiciary and the people of Kenya. We are hurting. The old days when people used to talk of ‘our people’ and ‘my people’ should be days of the past. People should take the bull by the horns. A thief will always be a thief even if he is in your house. I encourage my dear colleagues that when it comes to issues of corruption, nobody and no effort should be spared. If we do not check it, corruption will become a cancer. I come from an area where, just because of corruption, almost all our industries are on their deathbeds. Most of them have closed down. I used to work for a very nice company in western Kenya called Mumias Sugar Company. It used to be an icon of what a good industry is. Right now, I pass there and feel like closing my eyes. You wonder what went wrong. The machinery is there. The same staff is there. People came in and looted. With the sugar industries in western Kenya, the Government should change tact. It is not a question of pumping in Kshs2 billion here and there. It is a question of going to the underlying issues. In Mumias, for example - because I understand it very well - the problem is lack of cane. You cannot run a sugar factory when there is no cane. That company has a lot of machinery and everything that it takes, but as long as you do not have cane, it will not work. I duly submit that continuing to pump in money would be a waste of time. Thank you, Hon. Speaker for giving me that chance to touch on those things which are dear to me. Now I can talk about the Budget which happens to be my specialty as well. This was my first time participating in the budget-making process in this House. It was a good experience. There are still some challenges that I noticed. We are supposed to be the budget-making House. Budget-making is a cycle. It is not an action. It starts with identifying what you are budgeting for. When I was deliberating in my committee, my experience was that this Budget is made elsewhere. The first time I saw anything on the budget is when we were looking at the Review Paper. The next thing was when we were furnished with the ceilings. After the ceilings, the Estimates were brought to us. By the time we got the Estimates, I realised that the role of our committee is very limited. I remember the famous words were: “Do not change The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor.

anything unless you can find somewhere else. If you add here, you must subtract there.” That is the guiding principle we were given. We need to look at the Budget in totality. Every year when we consider the Budget Review Paper, this Parliament should be apprised on what the real factors that will guide us are. Luckily for us, we have the four pillars that guide us. Everything around the budget-making process should revolve around the four pillars. The next thing is what we will do around those pillars. How do we finance it? The other problem I found when we were coming up with this Budget, especially starting with the Supplementary Budget, was that we wasted a lot of time in our committees trying to work out what should or should not be done. We allowed the Executive to interfere in that process. I am aware of some cases where it was made very clear to us that it was very important to make some changes which we did. Somebody somewhere simply cancelled what we had done. While on the issue of the supplementary budgets, if we come up with a good budget, we should not entertain so many supplementary budgets because they could be an excuse for people not to come up with a good budget. Within a span of one year, you should know what you are going to do. But if we have a situation where every year we have three supplementary budgets, it could be a way of bypassing the good budget-making process. We should have a way of discouraging those supplementary budgets. Another thing which came out clearly during the budget-making process, and this one impacts what I am talking about with regard to supplementary budgets, was the development budget, which is taken as an appendage. Nobody takes it seriously. When there is no money, it is the first casualty of the Budget. That is very dangerous. We should safeguard and ring-fence the development budget because you cannot always steal from it in order to finance the recurrent expenditure. That is something we should take into account as we move forward. Listening to the presentation of the Budget and Appropriations Committee, I should have started by appreciating the job they did, which was very thorough. I attended some of their meetings and had a chance to go through the whole Report. They have done a commendable job. I was just a bit worried when they say that they will be visiting various counties and it is only when they visit your county that you are likely to be seen and considered. It should not wait for that. There are ways of getting information from our counties on what is important and what is not. When the projects were read, I just kept on wondering where Vihiga was in all that. Is Vihiga in Kenya? I never heard of any project anywhere near there. If we say that you should wait for your turn, it might be too late. That is another consideration that we should take in mind. I started by indicating that I have not been able to catch your eye for a very long time. In the process, some infamous list was circulated of people who have not talked in the House. It is common knowledge to all of us that a lot of parliamentary work is done in committees. If this list was done properly, the authors should, at least, have checked with the parliamentary committees to see what our input is. We cannot all speak here. Some are unluckier than others. That list hurt a lot of people. I would not like to think that it started from this House. As I said, I have now learned the tricks on how to catch your eye. I intend to be a very active Member of this House.

Let us have the Member for Turkana North.

Thank you, Hon. Speaker. I wish to thank the Budget and Appropriations Committee for coming up with a very comprehensive Report. It gives highlights of a number of issues which are very critical in the budget-making process. The Report gives highlights on the revenue streams and lines which are the areas where the Government intends to raise income to finance its Budget. The problem I have with the mode of identifying the revenue streams is that the Government intends to increase taxes on some essential items which has an implication of The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor.

reducing the marginal propensity to consume the Kenyan population. The Government ought to go further and identify more taxable items, so that it increases its tax base and collects as much revenue as possible. The Budget and Appropriations Committee Report also gives highlights on ways of containing inflation at 5 per cent. However, it does not highlight how it will deal with unforeseeable factors that affect Government projections on inflation rates. For example, on the issue of floods, the amount allocated for contingency on emergency responses is so little.

Therefore, the Government cannot adequately deal with unforeseen issues. There is need for the Government to look at the infrastructure as a way of stimulating economic growth. Infrastructure has a tendency of increasing the consumption and development agenda of a country. His Excellency the President was given an award recently as a champion of infrastructure development in the continent. The Report also gives highlights on the Government’s commitment on the fight against corruption. However, I have a problem with the manner in which it intends to fight this vice. Corruption has become a national character. Therefore, apart from fighting graft nationally, there should be an effort to scale it down to counties which have become the centre of corruption. The State should work so hard to make sure that allocations for development are properly looked into. There is also need to seal loopholes and leakages of the economy. The number of people who bank in Kenya is less than the ones who do not. There is a lot of money in circulation, which the Government has no record about. Therefore, the Government cannot account for its own capital base when much of the population does not bank.

Finally, there is the issue of the debt burden. Kenya has gone ahead to borrow a lot, both internally and externally. The National Treasury is trying to develop a regulation where the debt is calculated…

Member for Kiminini.

Thank you, Hon. Speaker. First and foremost, I want to congratulate the Budget and Appropriations Committee for the work which was done well. We have always been talking about this as a budget-making House. We are in a presidential system where Parliament is a budget-making House. It is very unfortunate because this Parliament was more of a rubberstamp than a budget-making House in the last term. However, I can see some improvements this time because we will not just stamp whatever will be brought here. I want to, quickly, mention something about education. So many teachers are suffering because they have not been paid their pension to date. I have just gone through the Schedule with my brother here and it is very unfortunate because we do not have an allocation for the teachers’ pension in this financial year. Teachers who have retired should be given their money. For how long are they going to wait for their money? We will bring an amendment, so that we can make a provision for the teachers’ pension, which has been long overdue. Secondly, I want to ask the Budget and Appropriations Committee to tell us the criterion they have used to sample the counties. We must understand the sampling framework because the essence of public participation, when it comes to the budget-making process, is for them to go to a specific county, listen to them and understand their problems, so that they factor it into the budget allocations. We have not had any project for the last four years in Trans Nzoia County. The Chair of the Budget and Appropriations Committee should listen to me. This is something that the Committee should be aware of. Hon. Ichung’wah should listen to some of the comments we put across and understand our concerns, so that at a later stage, when we bring amendments… The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor.

Hon. Wamalwa, you are making a very valid point. Any Member who moves a report or Bill and tables it before the House should always be here when Members are contributing because there is the opportunity to reply. Hon. Members, it is something we must avoid. If you have signed a Bill and moved it here, you must sit here and listen to contributions from the Members, so that when you reply, you do it to that which you have heard. However, the habit I have noticed is that a Member moves a report and then goes on a frolic in town. Because there will be an opportunity to come and reply, you come and say that you want to thank the Members for their contribution, which you have not heard. Hon. Wamalwa, do not worry about the time. I will give you extra two minutes because the point you are making is very valid. The Chair of the Budget and Appropriations Committee should listen and the Committee clerk should take notes, so that when he replies, he says what was said by Hon. Wamalwa about sampling and projects. This was the way we dealt with it in the committee. He has 15 minutes to reply. A Member cannot come here and say that he wants to thank Members for their very useful and insightful contribution. These are hollow words. You will be cheating your colleagues. I am sure that all of you know that there are several Members here who have that habit. They move Bills and then they take off. They do not listen to the debate and then two or three days down the road, you come here and say that you want to thank the Members for their very useful contribution. You might as well just rise in your place and bow and claim to have replied instead of saying that, because you are not being honest and fair to the Members. So, please, the reason why we said that we want the Chairs of committees to give this Report the first shot is also because they could find themselves being criticised. Let us take our work more seriously. The public must see that you are serious. This is the budget process. Hon. Wamalwa, you can now do your three minutes.

It is more than that. I had just started.

Proceed.

Thank you, Hon. Speaker. The Chair is not paying attention. I am talking about the criteria for assembling the framework that was used to visit the respective counties. You are supposed to listen to the citizens and their concerns so that in the spirit of public participation, you allocate some funds. When I look at the criterion that was used to select the 12 counties that were visited: West Pokot, Kajiado, Bungoma, Nakuru, Kirinyaga, Tharaka- Nithi, Nairobi, Migori, Nyamira, Marsabit, Mombasa and Makueni, I expected the Chair to have said that they based the selection on sampling. Instead, they said that they divided by four. So, if they divided by four, how did they come up with these specific counties? I am saying this because for the last four years, Trans Nzoia County has not been sampled to be one of the counties to be visited. As you know, I am humbly seeking to be the governor of Trans Nzoia in 2022. So, this is something I am really concerned about. For the last four years, we have not had it and this is the fifth year and we do not have it. Specifically, we have a road that runs from Turbo, to Tongaren, to Naitiri, Sabaot up to Suam. Looking at the schedules, it has been allocated Kshs100 million. There is a lot of conspiracy going on for that money to be removed from that particular road. Ten years down the line and last time we even had a visit by His Excellency the President and the Deputy President and I raised the issue of the road. This time, when I saw the Kshs100 million allocated, I asked myself whether it was for tarmac or for murram. Again, I am surprised because we have had a discussion with the Chair and I have learnt that they are going to move an amendment to remove theKshs100 million and allocate it to another road. We are going to The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor.

oppose this and whoever intends to remove that money, we are not going to accept. It can only happen over our dead bodies.

We are here as representatives of the people. We cannot allow few individuals to collude to further their selfish interests. It is, indeed, important that if visits to a county are going to be based on membership of the Budget and Appropriations Committee, then it is a challenge to us, Whips. Does it mean that when you are a member of the BAC they are going to put money in your respective counties? They have done good work on this report, but I have concern when it comes to the issue of public debt. Public debt in the country is very high in comparison to the GDP of this country. I know in other jurisdictions, if we compare our public debt to the United States of America or Japan, we are within the international standards. But the issue is that we cannot compare the United States of America and Japan with Kenya. This is a developing country where we must contain public debt. Otherwise we are mortgaging our future generations; our children and our grandchildren. We must borrow wisely. We should not over-borrow. I want us to borrow a leaf from His Excellency Mwai Kibaki. When he was the President, you can see the way he was running the economy. He did not over-borrow. We are borrowing to develop infrastructure, but let us borrow wisely.

On public hearing, the ones taking place have become a public relations exercise. Once the BPS is tabled here in February later we go for public hearing, it will not be incorporated. I agree it is important to amend the Public Finance Management Act so that we change public hearing to come early around October or November so that whatever wananchi suggest is incorporated in the BPS. What we are doing now is actually a public relations exercise because once the BPS has been tabled in the House and has given priority areas, public hearing will be useless. So, it is, indeed, important we amend the PFM Act so that public hearing comes in October or November.

We now give this chance to the father of the House.

Thank you, Hon. Speaker for giving me a chance to contribute to this important Report. First, I thank the Budget and Appropriations Committee for having done so much work in such a short period. I would like Parliament to look at the Big Four Agenda: universal health, food security, manufacturing and housing. I hope in this Budget Estimates - I have not gone through it thoroughly - they have made sure that, at least, every county has got one of the pillars being implemented in that county such that we do not have few counties, say 12, receiving projects of the Big Four Agenda when others have nothing. If food security is being implemented in Nairobi, in Kisii, we should have manufacturing, in Narok they should have universal healthcare, and in Mombasa they should have housing. This is to ensure that we do not have too many projects being undertaken in some counties when others are lacking any project.

The second thing, with the little economics I know, I am surprised that the Budget and Appropriations Committee can allocate funds to new projects and remove funds from projects which were there in the previous financial year. There is a road in my county which connects three constituencies. The road was advertised last three times and they kept saying that they could not get a qualified bidder although some of the bidders who were said not to be qualified were given jobs elsewhere. Now that road has not been allocated even a single cent. The Committee has approved allocation to new road projects and has taken away the money which had been allocated for that project. That is not the only case in Kisii County. It happens in many other counties in the country whereby a Committee removes allocated money for a project which has been promised and pledged to Kenyans as if it was being done for elections. The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor.

My colleague has just talked about national debt. We can incur national debt as long as we apply it appropriately, to make the economy of a country grow. When we seek international loan, we should seek it from a country like Japan where if we borrow from them, they pay us interest instead of borrowing from America where the more you borrow, the more interest you pay. China is like America. It is just Japan I know that has surplus funds and does not know where to invest.

We should look for ways of establishing incentives to attract investors to invest in Kenya. Let us borrow a leaf from Dubai or Singapore. All we need to do is to make our tax and investment laws attractive to potential investors because they are the only ones who can make our country develop economically.

Member for Emuhaya.

Thank you, Hon. Speaker, for giving me this opportunity to make a contribution to this important business in the House today. I first take this opportunity to congratulate the Chairman of the Budget and Appropriations Committee for good work done because they have been in many ways able to simplify the Budget to a level that it can be understood by not only those who are professionals in the sector but also those who are lay in the Republic of Kenya. Let me take this opportunity to make a few comments. This is a budget-making House. Previously, the role of the House was that of rubber-stamping the Budget. I want to draw the attention of the House to the fact that the now declared disaster called corruption which the President is at the forefront fighting, and which we should fight, begins at the moment of budget-making. I sit in the Committee on Labour and Social Welfare. That is where we oversee the institution called the NYS. From what we looked at, this is an institution that has always been given a lot of money but it has the inability to spend this money. That is where the looting of public coffers begins. As a Committee, we moved forward and reduced the budget of NYS by over Kshs8 billion. Now, moving forward, I must report that I know there are moves by authorities from elsewhere to try and lord over the Chairman of Budget and Appropriations Committee. I had a discussion with him this morning. They want the Committee to only reduce the budget of NYS by Kshs2.5 billion. I want to ask hon. Members to be on the lookout. The attempts that we are making in this House in order to sanitise some of these institutions like NYS are bound to be thwarted if we do not stand strong as a House that makes the Budget. I also would like to talk about the budget for education. There is the Big Four Agenda. Education is one of the enabling factors of this Big Four Agenda. When you scrutinise the budget, originally it had been proposed that more teachers would be employed, especially to provide for the 100 per cent transition from primary to secondary. Hon. Members, this affects you exactly where you are because when you go back home, you realize that more primary school kids have elevated themselves to the secondary school level, but there are no teachers at the secondary school level. Therefore, there was a proposal that 16,000 teachers be employed to facilitate the 100 per cent transition from primary to secondary and a further 5,000 teachers as a normal yearly employment. I am happy the Chairman of the Budget and Appropriations Committee is listening. There is no money allocated for the employment of teachers in this Budget. The Budget for the TSC remains the same. Therefore, I will be proposing an amendment that we get money to employ more teachers in our schools in order to enhance the 100 per cent transition rate. Moving forward, there is the issue which I want to support of increasing the money that goes to Kenya The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor.

Rural Roads Authority (KeRRA) for repair of our roads which are now in very bad state. That one is laudable. I wish to applaud the Budget and Appropriations Committee for that. Finally, there is the issue which everybody has talked about, that is, the magic formula used to pick on a few counties and leave other counties.

With those many remarks, I beg to support. Thank you.

(Hon. (Ms.) Mbalu): Thank you, hon. Members. Next on my request list is the Member for Igembe Central.

Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, for giving me this opportunity to contribute to this Motion. Noting that this House is a budget-making body in this great country of Kenya, we should put our foot down so that whatever we decide here is not changed in any way. Let me commend the Chairman of the Budget and Appropriations Committee and his team for the work they have done as they burnt the midnight oil to come up with these proposals. Indeed, so far so good. Nobody can be perfect. Nobody can do everything to the best. That is why these Estimates are brought to the House for us to debate and share so that we can make amendments where possible. The Budget has tried to capture so much. Most of the pending bills which have been there have been considered. If we do not pay our bills, then the country will be internally indebted. I can see the Chairman and the Committee trying their best to absorb most of the pending bills so that they can be paid. It is the onus of the ministries which get this money to be prudent enough. They should be realistic enough. They should put their foot forward and utilise those funds as per the allocation and, more so, make sure that there is 100 per cent absorption of the same. We need to look at the aspects of corruption and guard against wastage. I am happy that the Budget is taking care of the dilapidated roads, especially this time after the rains. The amount of Kshs30 million per constituency will cushion us from the problems affecting us in the constituencies, especially repair of the roads which were washed away during the rains. We have CIDC. There was a deduction of Kshs700 million and yet we want to change our curriculum so that we can train our youth so that at least we can produce experts and not just bookworms from the universities. So, reducing this Kshs700 million was a big blow to the education sector, especially at the constituency level. I request the Chairman and the Committee to rescind their decision and bring an amendment to that one. On the same token, we needed the Budget to address the shortage of teachers. To date, we are talking of a shortage of almost 80,000 teachers in our country. We need teachers to teach our children. We know all the children who did their KCPE. All of them were absorbed in our day secondary schools. If we do not factor that funding that would be used to train the teachers, then we will be doing a lot of disservice to our country. The TSC should not complain that it does not have money to employ more teachers. However, I think they need more funding. With regard to NYS, this is an institution which had been given too much. It had bitten too much that it could not chew. Therefore, I commend the Committee for reducing the same by The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor.

Kshs8.5 billion. Let me criticise the Press for saying that the NYS has been given only Kshs8 billion. The fact is that Kshs8 billion was reduced from their last budget. If we follow up on what has been put in this Budget, then we should, in fact, follow up on the way line ministries and State departments utilise the money we give them. Like in the last Parliament, when the Budget was read by the Cabinet Secretary for the National Treasury, it was just for safe keeping.

(Hon. (Ms.) Mbalu): You are a senior Member of the House. I will give you one minute. I can see you are agitating to say something. Give him the microphone.

Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, for your indulgence. I was saying that the Budget was read and we passed it in the last Parliament. There were some figures which had been put in it. In my case, a figure of Kshs200 million was put for construction of a road in my constituency in Meru. The road leads to the Meru National Park. Because it was not factored in paper like this, the ministry absorbed that money elsewhere. When I made a follow up, we could not get the money anywhere because it was not on paper. The same figure has been put in the Budget this time round. I have it here. There is no way they can say that money was not there. This transparency is what we require, we should continue with it. Thank you.

(Hon. (Ms.) Mbalu): I said you are a senior Member because I was so sure you are talking about the last Parliament. Thank you for giving the House information. The Hon. Member representing the people of Narok County in the National Assembly, Hon. Tuya Soipan.

Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to add my voice in support of the Budget Estimates that we have before the House. I will start by commending the work of the BAC through its Chair and the membership. From where I sit and as a second term Member, I think this is the most participatory budget process I have seen. Being the Vice-Chairperson of the Liaison Committee, I have had occasion to witness the sort of engagement that the Chairs and their respective Committee membership have had with the various state departments. They have resulted in the Budget Report which was presented this morning. There are quite a number of attractive votes that I could talk about. But, I will start by saying that despite the Budget being very participatory and attractive in many respects, I see a deficiency in the Budget that is before this House when it comes to the items touching on social development. When you look at the social development funds that we have had in the past which are the funds that go towards the economic empowerment of the common mwananchi… I am talking about women, youth and persons with disability. I am speaking about an example of the Women Enterprise Development Fund.

(Hon. (Ms.) Mbalu): What happened? She still has three minutes. Is her time over? Give her the microphone. I was so sure I know how to time. She has done three minutes. You have three more minutes.

I have it back. Please restore my time. I was talking about the social development Fund. I am aware that there is the Biashara Fund whose operationalisation is The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor.

pending. It has resulted in the freezing of the Women Enterprise Development Fund, the Youth Enterprise Development Fund and the like. They are not active at the moment pending operationalisation of the Biashara Fund. I am also aware that the NYS budget which is the one that goes towards empowering our youth has suffered a fate where we have a lot of decrease in that vote, and for good reasons. I totally understand why we have had that decrease. In fact, I add my voice to the people who are saying they wish we could suspend the whole NYS department until it is put in order. These social development aspects of the Budget are inactive at the moment. When you look at the National Government Affirmative Action Fund, there is a very negligible increase which was done by the BAC. All this is going towards a very detrimental effect on the social aspects of the common mwananchi. It is something we need to look into. In as much as we have the NYS scandal and we have that decrease or taking away money from the NYS so that we give it time for us to really put things in order, people who are suffering are the women, youth, the poorest and the grassroots populations in this country. On the monies that have been taken away from the NYS, can we look for other avenues through which they will still go towards helping the youth not necessarily through the NYS rather than taking them out and putting them in other votes which do not go towards supporting the initial intended beneficiaries? That is so that we do not punish the youth because of the corrupt actions of a few people in these ministries. In as much I am decrying the facts that this social development aspect of the Budget is really at its very minimal, hearing the presentation by the Chair of the Departmental Committee on Sports, Culture and Tourism this morning, I was a bit encouraged to see an allocation of Kshs426 million that is going towards a very new initiative called The Ushanga Initiative. It is an opportunity for the pastoralist women of this country to finally have a share or a bite of the national cake. The Ushanga Initiative goes to touch that Turkana woman who puts a lot of energy towards piecing together through beadwork so that she is able to feed her children; to earn something from that craft. The women of Narok, Pokot, and the several pastoralist counties which have been flagged as the pilot project for the Ushanga Initiative is something which makes me very happy. We will not accept any attempt to bring an amendment to touch on that. Already, we are seeing there is a suffering the women have to bear. It is because of the non- operationalisation of the Biashara Fund. I support that aspect and pray that the Ushanga Initiative is going to be implemented in the best way possible so that, finally, we can have the pastoralist women benefiting from a craft they know best. I am hoping that the Kamba women with their baskets and all these other crafts women at the grassroots levels engage in will systematically be recognised and given support so that they can earn a livelihood.

(Hon. (Ms.) Mbalu): Thank you. Member for Turkana Central, Hon. Nakara Lodepe. Hon. Washiali, we are aware of the system’s failure. Your name was there. Just hold on.

Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, for giving me this opportunity to contribute to the Budget Estimates. First of all, I want to thank the Committee for the participatory approach they took so that the public can give their view of the budget although they have not taken all of them into consideration. It is a good step and it shows that this country must participate. This Budget has taken into consideration the Big Four Agenda of the President of this country. We want the Big Four Agenda to be taken to the grassroots level so that development across this nation can be felt. I agree with Hon. Angwenyi when he said that when we say that we have a manufacturing The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor.

factory somewhere, he must also take production somewhere so that the whole country can feel these four agenda.

The State Department of Interior and National Coordination has been given a good amount of money and we want this Ministry to address the issue of insecurity in this country. We cannot implement the Big Four Agenda of the President if at all we are not going to have security in this country. We have allocated a good amount of money to the Ministry of Interior and coordination of National Government to ensure that the security of this country is stable so that investors can come. We also want this Ministry to employ more Kenya Police Reservists (KPR) so that they can go interior and help the locals to live in peace amongst themselves.

If you go around this country especially in Turkana County where I come from, the prison we have today was built during colonial times. It is beyond human habitation. We need to remove those council buildings and come up with new ones. There is congestion in prisons in Trans Nzoia, West Pokot and Turkana. We want this department to ensure that they have built good habitats for our people who are there. We need to establish programmes that will train prisoners or inmates to gain some knowledge on technical courses so that when someone gets out of prison, he or she will become self-reliant, he can do something that can make him active in the community than going to the criminal activities that he used to do when he was outside.

On Vote 1032, State Department of Devolution, we want to thank the community for increasing money that will go to devolution department. We want this money to be used for essential services that touch the lives of people, especially in rural areas. We want county governments to invest in health, education and water. Those are the services that can touch the local person.

Finally, I can see my time is up. Even if we have a good budget and a lot of money has been allocated, there are three key issues that we need to consider. One, we must implement this Budget to the latter. Secondly, we must do our oversight role because we cannot allow taxes that people have sweated for to go to a few individuals who have become rich overnight. We must ensure that we do our oversight as Members of Parliament and the Members of the County Assemblies (MCAs). Finally, we must audit both the money and the projects. We cannot audit money yet you cannot see where the project is. So, we are encouraging the audit agencies to ensure that both…

(Hon. (Ms.) Mbalu): Your time is over. Hon. Cecily Mbarire.

Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker for giving me a chance to also contribute to this important Motion that seeks to pass the Budget for the Financial Year 2018/2019. May I begin by first congratulating the Chairman of the Budget and Appropriations Committee and the entire membership of that Committee for a job well done. I also want to go further and thank the Departmental Committees also for a great job that they have done over the past several weeks while we were on recess. I must say that having sat here and listened to every Chair of committee as they made their presentation on behalf of their committees, it was clear that the committees took initiatives of ensuring that they looked into the various budgets of their Ministries and they also made serious observations which were made available to this House this morning. I hope that these critical observations that the committees made will be shared with the National Treasury under the various Ministries because they are observations that, in my view, would only add value to the work that we are doing. One of the issues that have been raised is that this particular Budget is aimed at ensuring that we implement the Big Four Agenda, in The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor.

particular emphasis on food, security, universal health care, manufacturing and affordable housing. Looking at that Budget, we are still seeing gaps in terms of real budget allocations marked specifically for projects that will ensure that we achieve the Big Four Agenda. So going forward, we are hoping that we can have very clear budgetary allocations as was proposed by the Budget and Appropriations Committee, that aimed at ensuring that we achieve the Big Four Agenda so that we do not lump it together with the rest of the Budget. There is also a very important proposal that was made by the Budget and Appropriations Committee, which proposed that the Parliamentary Budget Office does put together a list of compendium of projects that are at the national level for use by committees. It is only yesterday that in our Committee on Energy Members were saying that we need to enhance our oversight role as a committee and therefore we need to be on top of things in understanding what projects are happening and where within the Ministry and to ensure that we monitor and evaluate the same as we move along. Therefore this particular proposal to the Parliamentary Budget Office is a proposal that should be taken seriously and I hope that we can have this list of projects so that every committee can be able to follow up on the projects that are happening in the various Ministries. Of importance is the whole issue of State agencies and how they spend their money. It is clear that the scrutiny of the budgets of State agencies - that is parastatals and other agencies that are not necessarily within Ministries - need to be deep in view of the ongoing corruption issues that are being raised every day. Most of these State agencies do not bring their full Budgets to the committees for scrutiny and it is no wonder that we are reading stories of budgets being moved from one item to another without due regard of the law. We are also seeing money being inflated for certain projects without due regard of the law, therefore, going forward, there is need to be able to understand the budget of these State agencies by the committees and also to understand the absorption levels. There is need to have better oversight of the State agencies. It is also important that we have the key drivers of the…

(Hon. (Ms.) Mbalu): Your time is over. Hon. Mulyungi.

Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker. Allow me to first congratulate the Committee for a job well done because after looking at the Budget, I have seen it is in tune with the Government’s fiscal policy, especially the Big Four Agenda. I agree with the Committee more specifically on the allocation of Kshs30 million for the rehabilitation of all the roads in every constituency. This is laudable because it will go to our constituencies and will benefit our people locally. But I disagree with the Committee on the method they used on public hearings. Article 221(5) of the Constitution is very clear on public participation. You cannot pick only 12 counties and assume you have covered Kenya. Kenya is made of 47 counties and the Committee should have made an effort to cover all of them. I am very disappointed that my county was not included. In future, the Committee should visit all the counties and, if it is possible, all the constituencies so that they can grasp the needs of the locals. My county of Kitui in particular is one of the most marginalised counties in Kenya. It is very poor. We have grown up in poverty. It looks like we shall die in poverty. I think the Budget and Appropriations Committee should look at the marginalised counties and allocate them more money so that they can be at par with the developed counties. We lack water. Since Independence, there is a road that has been under construction from Kibwezi through Kitui and Kabati, and through my neighbour’s constituency of Migwani all the way to my constituency. The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor.

That road has never been completed. I do not see enough allocation for that road. It should be completed in this financial. It should not stop at Migwani; it should continue up to Bondoni. We lack water. We lack food. We lack employment. Therefore, this Budget should focus on those issues. In order to implement this Budget, the Executive must be at the forefront in fighting corruption. I want to commend His Excellency President Uhuru Kenya for coming out very strongly in the fight against corruption. He will be remembered for ever if he continues like that. I want to single out NYS. It should not be given any money. It should be given money for salaries only and all the money reallocated to poor constituencies like mine so that we can uplift the people’s living standards and stop this money from being stolen.

(Hon. (Ms.) Mbalu): You can mention your constituency.

My constituency is Mwingi Central Constituency. Mwingi is very poor. You can see how poor I am and I how short I am because of poverty. There is an issue on coal. Coal is very emotive. I have seen some money has been allocated for coal. It should be removed. We do not support coal mining in my constituency. We want money allocated for public participation first so that we can listen to the people, hear their views and move with them. In conclusion, I support the Budget.

(Hon. (Ms.) Mbalu): Member for Lari Constituency, Hon. Mburu. Is he in the House? I give the opportunity to Hon. Washiali. Your card was there. Member for Kwanza, you are always a noisemaker in the House!

Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker. I am a victim of the malfunctioning system.

(Hon. (Ms.) Mbalu): I am aware. That is why I gave the opportunity.

Thank you. Allow me to digress a bit by congratulating the Member for Vihiga who made…

(Hon. (Ms.) Mbalu): Member for Kwanza, you are next on the requests list. The Member is through. I may decide to give it to someone else.

Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker. I was saying that I want to thank the Member for Vihiga, who made a very eloquent maiden speech. In the course of that speech, he talked of Mumias Sugar and the unavailability of cane being the problem that has caused the company to be where it is. I wanted to inform him, in his absentia, that the unavailability of cane can only be tackled if Mumias Sugar is able to pay farmers. You cannot expect farmers to get engaged in farming cane when they cannot be paid. The corruption that took place in Mumias those days affected us those days and up to now we are still victims. Coming back to the Budget, I want to thank the Committee. As a member of the Committee on Environment and Natural Resources, I want to thank them because in total, they have been allocated Kshs58 billion. This means that at least our dams that are under process will be completed; our water supply programmes will be done; and that the forests that have currently been depleted will be restored by planting new seedlings. I want to request this House because we have been given the role of budgeting, but as we budget, we need to also extend to overseeing the operations of this Budget. There are cases where money has been allocated to roads and other projects, and then you find other than the money not being reallocated again, the contractors who have been given those jobs to do are not working on the roads. For example, I have a road of 26 kilometres in Mumias East. The The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor.

contractor has finished two years and he has covered only six kilometres. You wonder what happens. I am told they are supposed to be paid on certificates of three kilometres. But even if that is the mode of payment, why can he not move faster so that he completes as many three kilometres as possible so that we can complete that road and go to another one? I think it is the responsibility of this House to make sure that that is done. I also wanted to advise Members and the Government that we need to start working on programmes. For example, we had a policy on Vision 2030. I was talking to some Member outside and he was asking, “Are you supporting Vision 2030 or you are supporting the Big Four Agenda”, and I told him, which I want to repeat here; that the Big Four Agenda have been picked from the Vision 2030. If you went for manufacturing, Konza City is under manufacturing and it is in both Vision 2030 and the Big Four Agenda and we know that the President is still on course in terms of promoting the Vision 2030. Corruption is the biggest enemy which this country is facing. I want to plead with the Committee Members because they have an oversight role… As I can recall the other day, the Public Accounts Committee was…

(Hon. (Ms.) Mbalu): As a leader I will give you one more minute.

I just wanted to mention that Committee Members oversee Government departments and they should not rush to draw conclusions. This is because PAC sort of agreed with the Principal Secretary in charge of the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports who was involved in the NYS scandal. As a leader I followed what was transpiring but later on I saw the PS was indicted and I was right. Therefore, we should not rush to make conclusions to please our political supporters or who come from our regions.

Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, I beg to end there.

(Hon. (Ms.) Mbalu): Hon. Chair, you cannot castigate our Committee. I can tell you from where I sit the Committee did not rush. I am the Deputy Chairlady and we are on course. These are parliamentary committees and we cannot start castigating each other. You are welcome to the Committee to see the findings and give your contribution. Your point is taken. The Member for Kwanza, he likes being seen and heard.

Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, I will be very short and precise. First and foremost, the observations and recommendation proposed by the Committee are welcome. On agriculture as per the BPS, its allocation has stagnated at 2 per cent of the Budget. According to the Maputo Declaration on Agriculture and Food Security, all African countries should spend at least 10 per cent of their budget on agriculture. Therefore, I request us to review the budget allocation to pass the ceiling of 5 or 6 per cent as expected.

Secondly, the spread of the army worms particularly in maize growing areas in the South and North Rift such as Trans Nzoia and Uasin Gishu regions has affected maize production. However, I did not see any specific allocation towards this. For example, the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries asked for Kshs.826 million which was not given. Therefore, we should expect reduced food production in this country. The Government did not move because priorities are upside down. The fertiliser issue comes year in, year out. There is acute shortage of fertiliser and inefficient distribution of this very important commodity. I can tell you this will reduce the quantity of maize produced this year.

The Committee has said they visited various counties. I am surprised just like my colleague Hon. Wamalwa because they did not visit Trans Nzoia and we are demanding them to visit next time. We are complaining because we have been excluded for four years now. I come The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor.

from Trans Nzoia and I am not happy, I can tell you maize farmers are frustrated, I being one of them because of the way the Government is handling us in this country. We are now looking for an alternative way of dealing with this problem. I will be at the forefront advising farmers in the area to stop planting maize and grow something else so that we can be happy like other people. Frustrated farmers are very disheartened and are not interested in growing maize again. Therefore, we will turn to something else that can give us some income. I am also happy because in the BPS they did not want to fund State agencies and Government parastatals which have audit queries, and I agree with them. Why should we give money to a State agency, parastatal or ministry which has an audit query? We should not do that. One of the obvious ones is the National Youth Service. In fact, the Kshs.8 billion which they have been given should be returned. They should be given some little money for the boys to get food and other necessities. We should reduce their budget to, at least, Kshs.3 billion. The Kenya Meat Commission (KMC) is facing problems and I am saying this because I am a Member of the Departmental Committee on Agriculture and Livestock. The KMC is one of the best parastatals but it is not funded properly. Actually, at one time they were requesting for Kshs.500 million and this was reduced to Kshs.125 million as the Chair of the Committee has said. Therefore, we are expecting possible litigation from contractors on site. It has not been handled well and yet it is one of the oldest and most efficient parastatals in this country. In conclusion, let us do something about allocation of funds to the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries from the current 2 per cent to about 5 or 6 per cent because farmers are very disheartened.

(Hon. (Ms.) Mbalu): The Member for Kwanza, you are always seated next to the Member for Muhoroni. Earlier on, I was referring to him because he was consulting loudly with Hon. Washiali. I am sure they came from the same place. Let us have Hon. Chebet Tum, Nandi County Women Representative (CWR).

Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker for giving me this opportunity to contribute on the Budget Estimates.

(Hon. (Ms.) Mbalu): Order, Hon. Member! If there is any Member who has not made their maiden speech, at my discretion, I will give him or her a chance to speak.

Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, public participation in the budget- making process is important. We have been told 12 counties were covered during this process. I do not know the rationale and the logic that was used to select those counties. My prayer is that, in future, all the 47 counties should be covered because a bottom-up approach in development is important because the people are more informed. They should be given a chance to identify projects of their choice so that their needs are addressed. Our budget-making process should also be devolved to the counties. After the Budget is passed, it is my prayer that this money will be released to the Ministries at the right time so they can complete various projects in the country. The Budget should also be controlled to minimise corruption which is a cancer in our nation. There is need for stringent measures to be put in place to ensure money is used properly. The Kshs30 million given to sub-counties is okay but in future there is need to give additional funds to the CWR because we are given minimal funds yet we cover a number of areas in our counties. Another item is the 20,000 housing units for the police. I am so happy for this because we know policemen and women are living in pathetic houses. We know that productivity is The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor.

dependent on conducive living environment. In the recent past, we have seen quite a number of policemen who have killed themselves, their families or their colleagues. If we put up 20,000 houses for the police, we know they will not be living in the pathetic environments they are living in, in many areas in our country. We know they will be productive in what they are doing and we know their psychological wellbeing will be catered for. I applaud that and I say let more houses be put up for the police in the near future. We also need to factor in the issue of psychological treatment and welfare of the police. We need to engage psychologists because they are sometimes involved in dangerous environments. After an event which is not conducive for them, let them receive psychological treatment. That is in line with the 500,000 houses which is one of the four pillars of the Jubilee Government. If we continue like that, we will be doing good to our country. I just want to say let us all put into good use the money which will be given in our counties so that we reduce the menace of corruption in Kenya. That way, women will have water and food. Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker.

(Hon. (Ms.) Mbalu): Next is the Member for Bondo.

Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker. Preliminarily, I want to mention three things. One, there is the old political philosophy where we used to say that a state is a “man writ large” - a man made big

(Hon. (Ms.) Mbalu): The Member for Kimilili, Hon. Barasa.

Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, for giving me this opportunity. First let me say I appreciate the subcommittee that visited Bungoma County to collect views from the people who travelled for very long distances to come and give their views, specifically in identifying the projects that should be given priority. I am going through their report. I saw clearly that they had captured what they wanted and what the people of Bungoma wanted. I appreciate the subcommittee that was led by Hon. Onyonka. At the same time, I have gone through the final document by the committee that is chaired by Hon. Ichung’wah and the people of Bungoma are very disappointed that none of the projects they identified had been captured. As Parliament, we must give the people of this county the respect that when we get their views and when we come up with the final document, if you just put your own things I think that is not right. I think the people of Bungoma deserve some bit of respect because what they had wanted was to dual the road from Musikoma to Kanduyi and it was very clear. I attended the meeting together with Hon. Wamunyinyi, the Member of Parliament for Kanduyi, but going through the Report that has been tabled in this House, the views of the people of Bungoma have not been captured. Not just the BAC but any other committee that will go out to Kenyans to get their views must actually put their views into the final report as a way of appreciating the spirit of the Constitution that actually makes the role of Kenyans very cardinal in any of that public participation. We, the Members of Parliament from Bungoma, had put in some kind of amendment and we hope once it is approved, we will debate this on the Floor because I would find nothing absolutely to write home about. We support this Budget based on its capturing the interest of the people of Bungoma. The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor.

Finally, we must be serious and put the interests of Kenyans first. There is nobody else who is more superior to the people of the great County of Bungoma. There is nobody else who can speak on behalf of the great people of Bungoma County. When they said that they wanted the dualing of the road from Musikoma to Kanduyi, they were within their constitutional right to suggest what they felt should be given priority. I am very disappointed by this Committee. Even though I support 97 per cent of this Report, I am not happy about the issue of Bungoma County. I am expressing the disappointment of the people of the great County of Bungoma.

(Hon. (Ms.) Mbalu): Let us have the spokesperson - as it has been put – and representative of the people of Emurua Dikirr, Hon. Kipyegon Ng’eno.

Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker. I also wish to contribute to the issue of budget-making. I wish to state from the outset that budget-making is a preserve of this House. It is very absurd at times when we fall to the whims of the Executive who plan for us. It is the Members of this House, who are supposed to look at the Budget, follow it strictly and dictate on how to make it, especially through public participation. If we look at the areas which those people visited, they are also biased. The Committee Members only visited the areas they come from and allocated money to the same. When you look at the counties and constituencies to which money is allocated, the same names come up repeatedly. When you consider the issue of water and look at the constituencies that were visited, the same constituencies come up. When you go to other issues, the same constituencies come up. It is high time we looked at the Budget of this nation as a serious matter that belongs to the whole nation and not particular constituencies. There is another serious matter of borrowing. This country is borrowing a lot of money. It is not making any changes. It is overtaxing the people of Kenya. Sometimes we tax the people of this country thinking that we are making a lot of money for development and other matters. Overtaxing the citizens worsens the situation because it is those same people who are supposed to support the projects that we come up with yet we are overtaxing them. We should look at those issues when we come up with the Budget. Another issue which equally disappointed me is that of the Equalisation Fund. As per the Constitution, the Equalisation Fund is supposed to be allocated every financial year. As far as this is concerned, they have only allocated it once and it has only been implemented once. In this Budget, they have given us the allocation for last year and not this year. That means that the areas which usually benefit from the Equalisation Fund will not get the money in this Budget. That is very disappointing. We are supposed to be proactive and look at the needs of this nation so that all the areas which we are trying to equalise are equal to other areas. We do not reject the introduction of new methods of looking at those particular areas. Those areas which had been identified must finish the allocation which was given by the Constitution so that we start a new system. I have also looked at how they have allocated money for dams, boreholes, roads, the health sector and also the KMTCs. I am quite disappointed because I remember the Government had launched several tarmac roads in my constituency but I do not see them being mentioned anywhere. I remember the President came to my constituency during the campaigns and launched a Kshs400 million Level 4 Hospital but I do not see it anywhere. I was also talking to the Chair of the Departmental Committee on Health. With the use of the NG-CDF money, we have managed to build a KMTC. I am very happy that they have allocated money to the KMTCs. I am hoping that my constituency will be included because so far, I have made some progress. The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor.

We wish to have this particular money to assist us. Among the stalled Government projects, the Emurua Dikirr Level 4 Hospital is among them and I wish to see it being included. Lastly, I wish to talk about how those monies are allocated. Sometimes we are biased in allocation. Most of the Members have been complaining about the NYS. If we remove money from the NYS, we will not change anything. We need to remove the corrupt people from the NYS who are mismanaging the money that we put into it. I wish that we pass legislation in this House that will change what the NYS is supposed to do. We need to arm the NYS and deploy them as guards for the public and all these State offices so that instead of using the police to guard the gates of some people or banks, we should use the NYS. We should make use of those people whom we are pumping millions of shillings to. One thing that disappoints me is the allocation to the National Intelligence Service (NIS). Allocating Kshs32 billion to the NIS and yet you allocate…

(Hon. (Ms.) Mbalu): You have one more minute.

Just one moment. Hon. Oyoo Onyango, this is not a market place. You must respect the House and the Member who is contributing.

Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker for adding me one minute. I was talking about the NIS. We all know the functions of the NIS. The functions of the NIS cannot supersede the functions of the Kenya Police Service. Why do we allocate Kshs630 million to the Kenya Police Service while we allocate Kshs32 billion to the NIS which has never tabled any report in this House? They have never given us any assessment. They tell us that they look at the intelligence, look around the country for terrorists and the political temperatures in the country. That is nonsense. We need real work. The police should have more money allocated to them for the work they do. We should slash this allocation to the NIS up to Kshs10 billion and give the rest to the police because those are the people who serve everybody in this country.

(Hon. (Ms.) Mbalu): Thank you, Hon. Kipyegon. Let us have the Member for Busia County, Hon. Florence Mutua.

Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker. Being a Member of the Departmental Committee on Agriculture and Livestock, I first want to congratulate the Budget and Appropriations Committee for the good job it has done. I want to start with the issue of the Kenya Meat Commission. I want to commend the Committee for allocating Kshs85 million to the KMC for the settlement of pending bills owed to farmers. As a country, we have been talking about food security as one of the pillars. We cannot talk about food security without talking about livestock. When people talk about food security, they only think about crops. We also need to think about livestock as part of food security. We need KMC supported fully and not just in terms of the pending bills. There is somebody in this country who seems to want to privatise KMC. We will not allow this. Moving forward, we want KMC to be fully supported so that it can be fully mechanised and can operate at par with the many countries that we have visited to benchmark. I have been sitting here listening to the Members speaking about NYS, how it is corrupt, how we should deny it funding and how the money should be reallocated to poor counties and constituencies. We are not just talking about the NYS. It is not only the NYS that is corrupt. We have very many departments in this country that are corrupt. Will we deny all of them money? Will we reallocate their money to other areas? Are we losing the fight against corruption? As a The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor.

country, we need to put in place stop-gap measures for all those avenues that are being used for corruption and ensure that all the key departments in this country are fully funded. Now it seems like we are running away from allocating money to the departments. We have given up on the fight. The cases should be fast-tracked and the people who have taken our money should be taken to jail. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, we have very many stalled Government projects in this country. There are many incomplete NG-CDF projects. We have very many dispensaries that are just not completed because new Members do not want to complete the projects that the other Members had started. Can the Members complete the dispensaries that had been started because they will bring health facilities nearer to the people? Most of these projects are stalled and they are near to the people. Hon. Members do not want to complete them because they are not the ones who initiated them.

We have also seen the terrible conditions on our roads. The flooding has done more damage. We have seen people in Laikipia County throwing away tomatoes and food produce because they cannot take it to the market. We want to see the money that will be allocated to construct roads. We have roads that have been given to contractors in Busia County but construction has not started, yet the contracts have been signed. So, we want the people who get these contracts to do the work. Most of the blame goes to the governors and yet some of these national roads have been funded and contractors have already signed the contracts. We need these contracts done so that our farmers, suppliers and all the people can access markets.

As a country, we cannot continue to entertain mud-walled schools. We have no desks and toilets even in the areas where we have schools that are built permanently. We need these facilities to be provided. We cannot be allocating money all the time and then Members of Parliament are called for Harambees every other day to buy desks. That is not the role of a Member of Parliament. There are funds that have been allocated for these specific jobs. So, let the person who is doing that job buy desks and construct toilets for our girls in the schools.

Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, I just want to finish by stating that as women representatives, we have very many roles we do in this country. It is unfortunate that our work has not been appreciated yet. We have not yet been appreciated as Members of Parliament. We did a lot of things with the little funding we got last time. We have economically empowered women and youths. We are doing a lot of work for gender- based violence and pregnant girls. If people feel that we are not supposed to get adequate funding that can do these jobs, then our roles will be diminished.

(Hon. (Ms.) Mbalu): Hon. Mutua, we appreciate the women representatives of the county. Your constituency is the county. So, you have a full constituency. Hon. Member for Molo, who is also a Member of the Public Accounts Committee.

Thank you very much, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker. I have listened to Hon. Members making contribution and they have said that the budget for NYS should be cut. There are many other State agencies which have been accused of being corrupt and their cases of corrupt dealings are ongoing in court. As we speak, there is the maize scandal at the NCPB. We had a scandal at Kenya Pipeline Company (KPC) during the last few days. There was a case at NHIF recently. Before we went for recess, there was an issue at Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH), but it was not a corruption case. Should we say that all these agents that have issues be denied funding? Does that only apply when we talk about the only agency that deals with matters of the youths? Money for the farmers was lost at NCPB, NHIF and KPC and we will still give them an allocation. However, when it comes to the affairs of the youths in this country, we want The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor.

to cut that funding for them. The solution to end corruption is not to deny these agencies funding. There are 15,000 young men and women who are training in various skills in various training colleges that exist within NYS. If we say that we are going to pay salaries only, what will happen to those people? The NYS is a brilliant programme and we should not allow it to be killed by a few people who use it for their own benefits.

I have looked at various allocations. I am impressed because we are allocating Kshs850million to arts under Vote 0903000. In as much as we are allocating this money to art, who is running it? I was very embarrassed the other day. Before I say that, I have looked at Budget allocation that goes to the youths and a lot of money will be allocated to them. However, when it comes to the actual beneficiaries of these funds, none of them goes to the youths. I looked at a conference which was held recently at State House and a photo that highly circulated on social media of the people who were called in that meeting to deliberate about the affairs of the youths. The easiest I can describe them is that they only look a little too old to be even youthful. We must take the affairs of the youth in this country seriously. We should stop punishing this current and next generation because of failures of a few people.

I have looked at the allocation of Government buildings which is Ksh2.032 billion under Vote 103000. You find a project that was started in 2014 was not allocated more money and as such it stalled. In the long run, that building ends up being more expensive because already some of the structures are coming down. So, in as much as we are the budget- making House, we are also the House that oversees. We should make sure that we oversee this capital expenditure.

I want to talk about the disbursement of these funds. There has been rain across the country. We have allocated Kshs180 billion for roads this year. However, by the time this money hits the account and the roads are fixed so that they can be accessible to our farmers and people it will be too late. The rain did not just start. We predicted that it would start at a particular time but when we went to the regional KeRRA offices, we were told that money had not yet hit the account. So, as a result, our roads end up being deplorable. By the time we are going to salvage them, it is nearly too late. As a Government, we must decide. It is not just executing a project but it is doing it in a timely manner. I am saying this as a Member for Molo where we are one of the greatest producers of potatoes and food products. However, some of the roads there are embarrassing. I go to follow up and I am told that the funding has not been released. I feel that this should end.

Lastly, the Office of the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission has been given a budget of Kshs2.93 billion. This is the same amount of money that has been allocated to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions and half of the amount of money to the Office of the Attorney-General. What work are these agencies doing? Is it the high time we disbanded EACC or we considered it as a department with the Office of the DPP?

Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, for giving me the chance to contribute. I support the Report.

(Hon. (Ms.) Mbalu): Member for Mwea.

Thank you very much, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, for giving me this chance to support this Budget for the Financial Year 2018/2019.

First, I want to thank the Committee through the leadership of Hon. Ichung’wah. They conducted a participatory meeting in Mwea Constituency for the first time. The 1000 plus people who turned up was a clear indication of the problems that we have in Mwea. I also want to thank the sub-committee Chair who did a commendable job of listening to the people of Mwea and to The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor.

some extent made a good attempt to attend to some of the issues that were raised by the participants.

I also want to join Members who have spoken before me in recommending that we amend the Public Finance Management (PFM) Act, so that public participation can be done way ahead of this exercise, so that whatever the communities suggest may be put into consideration in the budget process. I was quite impressed by the current Budget proposals because Mwea Irrigation Scheme was identified as one of the facilitators of this economy, if the implementation and governance of the scheme could be looked at. I am particularly concerned that we have a mega project in the name of Thiba Dam. It is now taking shape or starting. I am a little bit disappointed that since 2012 communities that submitted their titles are yet to be fully compensated.

Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, I commend the Jubilee Government which has made available money to compensate those communities, but the process has been slow at the National Irrigation Board. Three months ago, we negotiated for about Kshs200 million to be paid to farmers. That money was made available but three months later, only Kshs28 million has been disbursed. Yesterday, I had a meeting with the National Irrigation Board and I could not get a convincing reason why we cannot clear this amount so that this scheme, which is currently a Kshs7 billion economy…. With the Thiba Dam, we will be having a Kshs16 billion economy, which we have been unable to implement since 2012 because we have not compensated these farmers. As we talk about corruption, let us also look at the money lost through projects that are delayed unnecessarily. In 2012, the Thiba Dam would have cost the Kenya Government Kshs12 billion to implement. Today, the same is about Kshs18 billion. We have lost Kshs6 billion because of that delay. That is almost equivalent to any other corruption. I hope the implementers will take it seriously and move forward expeditiously to disburse the compensation money. I commend the Departmental Committee on Agriculture and Livestock for being very supportive. We have a balance of Kshs450 million. I am told that money is now available. I hope by the end of August, we can fully compensate these people.

Another area I have discussed with the Departmental Committee on Lands, to whom I will be writing, is titling of land for the people of Mwea so that they can take ownership and use it for their economic advancement.

Constituencies are units of representation but in a number of times we have used them as units of resource allocation. In this country, some constituencies are larger than others. My constituency, which is one of the most populous in Kenya, has about 200,000 people compared to other constituencies that have less than 50,000, yet the resources allocated are the same. We are creating disparity. In 10 years’ time, we will notice a big difference in ….

(Hon. (Ms.) Mbalu): Member for Kanduyi, Wafula Wamunyinyi.

Thank you very much, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker. Picking from where my colleague has left, resource distribution must be equitable. I would like to inform him that his constituency is not the largest. Mine has over 300,000 people. His has only 200,000 people. It has been very unfair when we get the same amount of money. I support that point. Even funds from NG-CDF must be shared equitably. If that cannot be done, we would rather give it to the national Government or county governments to manage it or we do it properly so that we benefit all Kenyans. This principle also applies to the budget-making process. The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor.

When I look at the budget for universities, for instance; universities in the Central Region have been given huge sums of money, in some instances running to billions of shillings. Universities like Masinde Muliro and Kibabii University in western Kenya have been given a mere Kshs30 million and Kshs25 million. A university in Central Kenya has been given Kshs1.4 billion. That is very unfair.

On a point of order, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker.

(Hon. (Ms.) Mbalu): Order Hon. Wamunyinyi, there is an intervention from the Member for Mwea.

I hope it does not eat into my time. I only have five minutes.

(Hon. (Ms.) Mbalu): It must be something that is out of order. You must quote the Standing Orders. What is out of order?

Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, with due respect to my colleague, he has referred to the Central Region as being favoured. That is a serious allegation and a bad one, given the atmosphere in the country.

(Hon. (Ms.) Mbalu): Hon. Member, it is not a bad one. This is a House of debate. The Member for Kanduyi has a right to debate in the House. I know you are speaking from where you sit, but he has a right to debate. This is the Budget. Those are his observations. Proceed, Member for Kanduyi.

Thank you for protecting me, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker. I am not being tribal or complaining. I am only saying there should be equitable distribution of resources. Let all parts of the country be funded. That is the point I am trying to stress.

The Budget and Appropriations Committee’s tours of the counties that have been mentioned are in line with the provisions of the Constitution. Article 221(5) of the Constitution is clear. It says that in discussing and reviewing the Estimates, the Committee shall seek representation from the public and their recommendations shall be taken into account when the Committee makes its recommendations to the National Assembly. The Committee visited my county and we appreciated. My colleague, Hon. Didmus, talked about it. We were happy that we were visited by the Committee. A public baraza was held, leaders’ meetings were held and the position of the county was made clear. We gave what our priorities would have been, as was stated by my colleague. However, when it came to preparing the Report, our position was changed. It is important in ordinary circumstances for people’s views to influence policy. If they influence what ought to be done, it will touch people’s hearts. We are not just doing it for people in Nairobi or for the Committee of this House. It is for the people. That is the Constitution says we should seek views from the people and take them into account when we report to the National Assembly. I call on the Committee to comply with the requirements of the law and put in place what the people of Bungoma wanted.

Rains have been experienced across the country. They were predicted. It was known that we were going to have rains because there was drought. Even the weatherman said it. Most of the roads in the country have been cut off. Besides the Solai disaster in Nakuru, people have suffered in many parts of the country. As a country, there ought to have been some mitigating measures in place to ensure that when something like this happens, action is taken to save our people. People have died in houses while others have died while crossing rivers. We have had many problems. I appeal that in future we should make adequate arrangements to make sure that people are served adequately and their welfare taken care of when necessary. The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor.

Corruption begins at the budget-making process. When you duplicate a project in the Budget, is it deliberate or a typographical error? Money ends up being allocated to projects that are non-existent. As Parliament, we must be careful when we prepare the Budget to make sure that there is no duplication. At the end of the day, it will be used. Some people will want to provide for projects they know are not necessary or are not a priority simply because they want to use such projects to make money, like in the case of the NYS scandals. I do not blame the people involved in the NYS saga. We put money at the NYS while knowing that the NYS has no capacity to absorb the funds allocated to it. So, it is something which puts together many people even from budget-making process. We need to watch out as Parliament to make sure that we represent the people adequately and prevent this from happening. With those few remarks, I thank you for the extra minute you added me. I support.

(Hon. (Ms.) Mbalu): Hon. Rehema Dida.

Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, for giving me this chance to contribute. We are fasting and time was running out. I was getting worried. I also want to join my colleagues in supporting this Budget and to congratulate the Budget and Appropriations Committee for doing a good budget process. We gather that it was a participatory process. They took the first initiative by visiting some counties. I congratulate them for that. It is an excellent Budget. It is quite involving. At least it covered most aspects. Infrastructure and the Big Four Agenda were covered. Therefore, I congratulate them. I want to speak on two issues. One, I want to understand why the Budget and Appropriations Committee felt necessary to reduce the allocation of school feeding programme by Kshs300 million. A Member brought a Motion before this House to ensure that school- feeding programme becomes compulsory and a nation-wide activity. Therefore, I do not know why that amount was reduced. On the issue of NYS, it is given that NYS has become a cash cow since it became vibrant in 2015 and 2016. The NYS is not the only institution that has been identified with corruption; we have seen big corruption in KPA and many Ministries. Therefore, this is not fair. The NYS has brought a lot of transformation in the lives of the youth of this country. It has some social component that had worked for women empowerment. The best way of dealing with corruption, in my view, is not to cut their budget but to put adequate measures to ensure that corruption does not thrive. The Committee needs to look at that. Secondly, I want to speak about the Equalisation Fund. It is not fair that this Fund is not put in the Budget because of lacuna in policy. Since inception of this Equalisation Fund, we have been having a lot of challenges. The most worrying – and not that I am opposing – is redefinition of marginalisation and trying to bring many counties into the marginalisation bracket when the ones that are already meant to be de-marginalised have not been done so. Therefore, I urge this House to fast-track the process of implementing the marginalisation policy so that at least the 14 counties that were initially to catch up with other counties can benefit from this Fund. Lastly, I want to speak about the Affirmative Action Fund that is meant for the women representatives. As it is, the women representatives are marginalised because we are campaigning in the entire county just like the governors who control a lot of resources yet we have little resources. We need resources to enable us achieve our mandate especially those of us from Isiolo and Lamu counties. We are already marginalised further because we have only two constituencies. We need an affirmative action within an affirmative action. Therefore, I urge the The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor.

Budget and Appropriations Committee to reconsider giving us something more. Others have four, five or six constituencies. We have only two constituencies. With those remarks, I thank you for giving me this opportunity.

(Hon. (Ms.) Mbalu): The Deputy Chair, Public Investments Committee (PIC).

Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker. I also rise to add my voice to the Budget and Appropriations Committee’s Report. I congratulate them for a job well done. However, I also have reservations on the reallocation they have made just like Hon. Rehema has raised. To the best of my understanding, this budget-making is guided by BPS ceiling, Medium Term Plan III, Vision 2030 and the MDS strategic plan. I wonder whether the reallocations made by the Budget and Appropriations Committee are in line with these guidelines. I am asking this because as raised by hon. Member, you wonder why Kshs100 million has been reallocated from the school programme plan to another function. This is not fair. You will find that Kshs700 million which was earlier meant for construction and equipping of constituency industrial development centres has been reallocated to military modernisation programme in the Ministry of Defence. I want to agree with them that it is important to allocate funds to the Ministry of Defence modernisation plan. However, funds that were already allocated to constituencies ought not to be reallocated for this purpose again. Of course, a lot of funds have been reallocated from the tourism sector to Ushanga Kenya Initiative. I do not understand what we mean by this Ushanga Kenya Initiative but I am made to understand that this is meant for certain women groups. It is fair that this is also done across the board because we have very deserving and vulnerable women groups in different parts of this country. We must be guided by need and not by any other reason. Secondly, it is important that distribution of these funds be fair in the different regions of this country. Article 201 of the Constitution talks about principles of public finance and gives guidelines on issues of openness, accountability and public participation. It reads that the burdens of this country should be equitably distributed between present and future generations. When we are distributing resources, why can we not be fair in such a manner that it reflects the face of this country? This Budget ought to ensure that there is fair and equitable distribution of funds across the regions of this country. You will find that there are certain marginalised areas within the county itself. If the allocations we are making within the national Government are done in a manner that does not reflect all the regions of this country, it will be unfair. That will mean the already marginalised communities like the El Molo or the Ajuran of the Somali community will be more marginalised again. This ought to be checked well to ensure there is equitable and fair distribution of resources within this country. On the aspect of the Equalisation Fund, I strongly feel that the CRA and the National Treasury are dragging their feet on its implementation. We need to ensure resources are allocated to the areas they are meant for. The CRA should be informed that their action is totally contrary to the promulgation of the Constitution 2010, which ensures that marginalised communities in this country are served well. We should not just have these funds being mentioned in the Budget.

(Hon. (Ms.) Mbalu): Hon. Members, I must say we have eight requests. Given the time of speaking which is five minutes per Member, we are all going to speak to this. It is a very important Motion for the House and the Members. So, let us be patient. Hon. Member for Ndaragwa. Is he in? Hon. Jeremiah Kioni?

Thank you Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker for that opportunity. The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor.

In support of the Motion and also in congratulating the Committee, I must say that the Committee was able to produce a good Report we can debate. Without doubt, it is also of the quality of the Clerks assigned to that Committee. I can see the Vice-Chairperson of the Parliamentary Service Commission (PSC) is here with us. I know she will take note of that. Without good Clerks, a Committee would not do anything.

I see there is a change of guard. One of the reasons public participation was included in the budget-making process was… There before Budgets were being made in the Treasury by Ministers. When they were making those Budgets, they would favour their areas. As this BAC endeavours to implement the provisions of the Constitution and the Public Finance Management Act, it must also make sure that the Members in that Committee do not fall into the same trap of looking at the areas they come from and favouring them in one way or another. If that happens, we will call them out. I say this because I hear we could not hold public participation in all the counties. It is also necessary for us to be told exactly what happened with the random sampling or whatever method they used to arrive at the number of counties they went to. It must be well communicated to the public. We must be able to buy into it. The reasons that have been adduced here are not convincing enough. We do not want them to select counties and go to them for any other reason other than for the work they are meant to do. The question that begs for an answer is that we hear they went to Bungoma among other counties. I say Bungoma because Members from there talked about it just a while ago. They did not come to Nyandarua. They have taken the views of the people of Bungoma. How is it that they arrived at some proposals for the people of Nyandarua? There are two standards. Those in Bungoma said what they want but others sat in an office and decided what the people of Nyandarua want. We must be very careful with that kind of a position. I talk about Nyandarua because the President was there on two or three occasions before the conclusion of the last elections. He kept repeating that Nyandarua is a marginalised county. I do not know why the budget-making team did not capture that. For the reason that we had even been promised that dams would be done in that area. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, you come from a county neighbouring mine, Laikipia. You are also supposed to be a beneficiary of the three dams of Kinja, Malewa and Pesi. The bad news is they are not in this Budget; not a coin was allocated to them. We really need to know why that happened. Why that omission? When tomatoes are rotting in Laikipia, they will rot in Ndaragwa. When we talk about roads, we suffer the same. It is important we support that provision of Kshs30 million per constituency. Certainly, we in Ndaragwa needed the money like yesterday because our roads have also been heavily damaged by the rains. Without that Kshs30 million, we would really be doing very badly, not just in Ndaragwa or Nyandarua; I know it is across the whole country. A good budget-making process will entail a principle that, what has already been started, its funding started, would be funded in the coming year. I have a road in Ndaragwa Constituency that was funded five years ago. Funding was cut. There are no funds where we are today. I can The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor.

see some money has been allocated this year. Thank you for that, but we missed out in the last three or four years. On the issue of the Equalisation Fund, what was being equalised was not counties. It was people in various areas. We must remain faithful to that principle in the Constitution. I do not think I have used all my time. However, an area completely outside my area is the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC). As we look at the issue of media and information, let us fund it well.

Well, Hon. Member. Shall we now have Hon. Mboni, Member for Kitui Rural?

Thank you Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker for giving me this opportunity to contribute to the Budget. First is to congratulate the BAC for doing good work despite the limited resources which go into the Budget. I would like to thank them for allocating Kshs30 million to each constituency for rehabilitation of the roads. As we stand here, our roads are in very sorry situations. I am sure each Member is receiving a call from the constituency every day to remind him or her how the roads are very bad. More importantly is the allocation of Kshs10.7 billion to national statistics and information. This is a very good appreciation of statistics. A lot of people do not appreciate statistics. Without statistics, you cannot do proper planning. You cannot come up with good policies. Even the Big Four Agenda needs very good statistics for planning and implementation. This is a very good thing which has been done. Statistics is very important for resource allocation. Without them, you cannot really allocate resources effectively. Recruitment of staff in the public sector needs population data. The Kshs10 billion will go towards preparation and implementation of the census. I want to remind the House that the National Bureau of Statistics will carry out a pilot census this year in August. We will have the full census next year so that we can, at least, have a good database for ourselves. My concern is the public debt. It is rising. The cost of servicing the public debt is enormous. Donor funds comprise a lot of money we are borrowing. When you look at the implementation of the donor funds, you will realize it is below 50 per cent. We are paying a lot of penalties. The last time I looked at the figures I saw that the money we are paying for penalties for not utilising the donor funds is over Kshs1 billion. We need to really manage our public debt and deficit.

Most of the times we are borrowing to finance our deficits. I have never understood why Kitui County has never been considered for Equalisation Fund. I remember some years back, the Chairman of CRA went to Kitui and cried because of the poverty in that place. However, Kitui is never considered when it comes to allocation of these funds. There is something wrong and we need to address it.

My last comment is, to achieve real growth we need to fully implement the Budget. The Budget implementation is below 80 per cent and when you look at the Budget for developments it is even worse, at around six per cent. We, therefore, need to at the same time, fight corruption and wastage in public sector. If we address that, it will be easy to achieve economic growth. We have been talking of 10 per cent economic growth, but we have not been able to achieve it because we have not been able to address fundamental issues on corruption in relation to the full implementation of the Budget. Thank you very much, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker.

Hon. Naomi Shaban. The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor.

Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker. It is the mandate of Parliament to make sure that the Budget of this country is realised once the Executive has made its suggestions, on how they want the outlook of that Budget to be. I want to commend the Budget and Appropriations Committee for putting in extra hours and working very hard to make sure that, despite the constraints, they have tried to redistribute what we thought was necessary and more so, in areas where they went for public hearings. I have seen them make some provisions for those areas to cater for some of the bridges, roads, dams because that is what the public want. It is not easy for this kind of work to be done within the stipulated timelines which have been set in the Constitution. Like I said, I have seen a big difference in the sense that even Chairs of committees have actually been able to come to the Floor of the House this year and explain some of the reallocations they had suggested to the Budget and Appropriations Committee, so that Parliament and Kenyans can appreciate the work which has been put in this document. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, it is obvious and it is a big cry for this country that quite a big amount of money is being misused. Going forward, something must be done about it. The President has been agonizing about the problems of corruption yet year in, year out we have a lot of wastage in our country. I have seen quite a lot of reallocations towards the military and I was just concerned. When you look at the Big Four Agenda that the President has set to work on, I am really concerned that most of the reallocations should have gone to those four areas. The Ministry of Industrialization which should be spearheading manufacturing has not been well funded, in my opinion. In fact, money was reallocated from them to the other State Departments. I think we need to look at the Big Four Agenda and give them enough budgetary allocations so that they can carry out and realise the dream and the vision of the President as he does his second term. The ASAL is a very important area. Of course, floods are now all over the place… It is worse in those ASAL areas. From floods you will go to drought. Quite a bit of funding should have been put in that area. I feel that department has not been given enough funding to deal with issues of climate change which have been affecting those areas. All the same, I think it was a difficult balancing act and the committee has done a good job.

Hon. Onyango, Member for Muhoroni.

Thank you very much, Hon. Temporary Deputy Chairman for remembering me albeit late. I do not know whether to thank this Committee because I believe they did a good job but not a very good one. I want to remind the Committee and this House that the process of budget-making and oversight should be the domain of this House. I know of some businessmen who are involved in pending Bills, who canvas their issues at Treasury. Treasury should not be the people responsible for making this Budget. So, we must take our responsibility seriously. Because I am towering Member of the sub-committee of Labour and Social Security, I want to say without fear of contradiction in this House, that this issue of NYS is being blown out of proportion. The NYS stands for “National Youth Service” and this service cannot be corrupt, it is individuals within NYS who are deemed to be corrupt. I say deemed because they have been arrested and their cases are being handled by competent courts which will soon decide whether they are culpable or not. Otherwise, the NYS is not corrupt, it is individuals who are corrupt. The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor.

We want the Government to ensure that corruption is removed from our midst. By removing corruption we must stop this cosmetic attitude of pinching a few people here and there and then we purport to be dealing with corruption. Corruption starts with the people at the top who make calls to the procurement officers determining for them who to give the contracts, and the accounting officers determining for them who to be paid, unless we decide to slay the dragon from that angle, we will do very little to heal this anathema of corruption. Otherwise, I want to say that this Committee has not done very well because when I look at Education; in the last Parliament we had an element of bursary in the budget. This was removed and when we complained we were told that the money had been taken for capitation.

Two years down the line, in my constituency I have not seen any infrastructural development culminating from this money. I believe that it might still be the case. So this should have been reintroduced. If it is not there, it is a mistake. We still need it because our budget for NG-CDF is small and cannot suffice the entire demand by the constituency. We had 100 per cent transition in schools and this made all our schools become overpopulated. The Government that had so desired to do this, and it was a very good step, did not provide money that would help expand the infrastructural capacity of these schools, such that the onus is now left for us and you all know how little the NG-CDF kitty is and all the schools are now looking for us. Kenyans were given the impression that with the concept of NG-CDF, all the schools, even the ones that would be done through Harambees, parents are unwilling to do

. They now look up to the Member of Parliament, thinking that the CDF has all the money that they need while the monies are being spent elsewhere. I do not know what happened such that these days senior Government officers, more so CSs, who are given access to very powerful engines - you find a CS with two or three Prado engines - but for strange reasons now they have opted to using choppers everywhere. I believe that this is a very expensive exercise that is digging into our Budget. Something should be done such that it can only be used when it is necessary. These days when you are expecting a CS for a function, you do not look for him coming. You just look up and soon you will know that the CS is about to arrive. It has now become the norm. I believe it is very expensive. I am saying this also because in many cases they do not want to do the roads because the CSs now prefer to fly. I do not know where the money comes from. The other point is that this Budget should have addressed the disparities in the last Parliament, where roads were concentrated in certain areas, which then we thought was a Jubilee way of enticing voters which was good; it is a political outfit, we were not members and we could not hate them. It was their time. But now that the political temperatures are becoming normal, we expect the CS for infrastructure to ensure that roads are built where they are supposed to be built. In Muhoroni, which is the citadel of manufacturing, the Government collects taxes from Muhoroni Sugar Company. When the company was not able to remit taxes, they closed the factory.

Hon. Onyango, did you say that the CSs are always expected from the air, not from the road? Okay. Hon. Shinali Masaka, Member for Ikolomani.

Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker. At the outset I would want to follow the Members who have spoken by congratulating the Budget and Appropriations Committee for, for the first time, simplifying the Budget so that Members do not struggle to understand what is where and for the commitment they have put in because this is the first time we have seen the BPS and medium-term plan being adhered to on time. The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor.

To comment on public participation, I want to also applaud the Committee for the framework they have come up with. At least in the next five years the Committee will have to visit 12 counties per financial year, which means all counties will have been visited. Having had the privilege of visiting some of the counties, I discovered that as we allocate money here, public participation must be done way ahead or, if possible, we amend the PFM Act such that public participation is done way ahead or continuous. We have allocated money, for example, to MES, the Ministry of Health equipment that have been supplied to counties. Surprisingly, we have found that we have been paying money every year for four years but some of those machines are still in stores; they have not been used yet the contract will expire in the next three years. That means the Government will have lost a lot of money. Still on the Ministry of Health, we have CT scans for which monies have been paid already through supplementary budgets. Using Article 223 of the Constitution, monies are paid without passing through this House. Those equipment are supposed to be housed in several hospitals in the counties yet structures to house those equipment are not there, which means when the CT scans will come we shall start paying but they will not be in use. I would also want to applaud the Committee and the Government for putting in this Budget money for cash transfers to old people. We have people who stay below that poverty line. As from end of July, they are going to start earning Kshs2,000. On top of that there is Kshs500 for NHIF. I also want to congratulate NHIF. I was in India two weeks ago for treatment and I met two Kenyans whom NHIF had sent there. NHIF is recognised there compared to our insurance scheme here where you have to spend money and be paid when you come back. The rains that we have gotten in this country have really damaged our roads. The Committee, together with the transport committee, have considered allocating money for roads. This is a good move. The same move should have been taken to farmers whose crops have been damaged by the rains, so that they get something to fall back to since they might not have good harvest. Bridges have been washed away in all areas.

Shall we now have Hon. Oluoch, Member for Mathare.

Thank you very much, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, for giving me this opportunity to add my voice to the report made by BAC. Allow me to join those who have congratulated this Committee. Budget-making is a very delicate balancing act where resources are being competed against by different interests from different counties and constituencies. It can never be an easy task to do. So allow us to thank them. As I thank them, I want to say that in Nairobi they were able to conduct public participation in Dagoretti, I believe in the constituency of John Kiarie. But going forward, this House should put in place a law that can guide us on public participation in line with Articles 10 and 118 of the Constitution that make public participation mandatory. This is also going to be in line with the chapter on public finance. Not only does the chapter say that public finance shall be used in an equal and equitable manner, it demands that the people are carried along. The tax burden is not only supposed to be carried equally but also the resources themselves are supposed to be taken into account. As we do this, we hope that Parliament will be able to take its oversight role seriously, over and above its budget role. I say this in light of corruption that has been recently revealed; that is crippling this country; that has become not only a disease but a national disaster. As we were debating the President’s Speech, I was thinking to myself that one of the things that, maybe with the benefit of hindsight, the President should have done was to make the fight against The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor.

corruption one of his Big Four Agenda, so that in the hierarchy of those big items the fight against corruption ought to have come at the top of the agenda. At the end of the day, we are seated here looking at how money is being appropriated, but the persons who bear the tax burden are the ordinary taxpayer. Therefore, this is a question we must deal with and which brings me to my first point on the line items. I have seen we have allocated Kshs31 billion to the NIS. I want to take fault with the NIS and the amount of money that we allocate this agency year in, year out. The President is said to be acting on intelligence as we have seen him cracking the whip in the last few days. The question is: Was this intelligence not availed to the NIS? If it was availed before corruption had reached these levels, why did the intelligence not share with the President? If this had been shared with him the Speech on the State of the Nation could have perhaps taken a different tenor and approach. I support those who are saying that we better cut down the allocations made to the NIS and take them to other prosecutorial orders. Let us fortify the ability of the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions to fight and prosecute these matters. Let us finally see the 1,000 people who have been taken to court rot in Kamiti Maximum Prison. I also want to take fault with the money we continue to allocate to the EACC. It was established as an independent commission under the Constitution. I want us to remind ourselves that the reasons we put these independent commissions under the Constitution was to ensure that power was not vested solely on the Executive and other branches of Government so that these commissions… As I can see my time is almost over, I would like to commend the Kshs30 million which has been allocated for roads. Regarding the Equalisation Fund, Mathare Constituency in Nairobi is marginalised to the extent that we have slums…

The Member for Mathare, from my assessment you had actually concluded. If I add you a minute, I will have to add your neighbour as well and that will not be fair. The Member for Bomachoge, Hon. Ogutu.

Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker. It is Bomachoge Borabu. There are two Bomachoges. I want to thank you for giving me an opportunity to contribute to this debate on the Report by the Budget and Appropriations Committee. My speech will be very brief because I want to look at two areas. What has been done well---

Order! Put your microphone facing upwards so that we can hear you.

Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker. A number of things credible to budgeting have been observed. Outright there has been active involvement of the Members of this House. Since morning, I have seen Chairs of various Committees responding to specific questions and also appropriately submitting Committee Reports of various departments in good time. I want to thank the Budget and Appropriations Committee for ably consolidating the various reports of other Committees and making very clear summaries concerning changes made. Conducting public participation was good although this was not done in all areas because that was not practical. However, it has contributed substantially and the budget has captured the people’s opinions and funded projects from respective areas where public participation was conducted. This is very encouraging because they were responsive to the voices of the people. I know that the allocation of resources to those areas where public participation took place has not been appreciated by a number of Members. We do not know the debate which took place when The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor.

the Committee Members met the people. Let us appreciate this is the beginning and we know there are lessons we have learnt from this. I want to thank the Committee for engaging the people and equally identifying their needs and allocating funds. The budget has also addressed the challenges this country has faced following the floods and Kshs30 million has been allocated. I want to applaud this, but more money should have been allocated to address issues caused by the floods. We know a number of areas were affected, schools have collapsed and others are lacking facilities. For example, in my constituency, there are about 16 schools which were affected in Maiga, Bendera, Rianyanchabera, Ichuni, Getenga and Keore. The schools have no toilets for students to use since they collapsed or are filled up with water. The whipping of state departments and ministries which have not used their resources well is good. The Kshs8.5 billion which has been taken from the NYS - I would like to see where it has been reallocated. We want to track whether it will make a positive impact after being withdrawn from this giant organisation which works for the youth. What has not worked well is the big number of projects which are cash cows and have been going on for many years. In the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology we have Mtihani House. I think more whipping should have been done concerning this particular area. The Committee has done commendable work. With those few remarks, I support the Budget.

Before I go to my left allow me to give Hon. Mohamed Sheikh an opportunity because, obviously, in a few minutes he will be breaking his fast. So, let us consider him. Hon. Mohamed you have the Floor.

Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, for allowing me and acknowledging that I have been fasting all day long. Ramadhan is a very important holy month for all Muslims who observe it and I pass my sincere greetings to all of them. At this particular time while I have the Floor, I support the Budget because it is quite comprehensive and supports the national development of this country. I want to thank the Budget and Appropriations Committee for tirelessly committing their time and considering the entirety of the needs of this country. While we deal with the Budget almost all the times, I see Kenya’s Budget Estimates are developing further and further as we grow and becoming a very important economic hub in the East and Central African region. It is also important for us to realise that we are a nation that is developing economically and is ready to attract further development from the rest of the world. The meager Budget is still not sufficient enough to cover all areas. I am a bit hesitant to support particular areas that have not been given sufficient amounts of funds like Health. This is simply because if you look at other parts of the world for example, Canada 50 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product goes to health. However, in Kenya, the allocation for health is about 15 per cent, which is quite small with a big population of about 40 million. I am quite disheartened that the Equalisation Fund has not been factored in this Budget. As we know, the Equalisation Fund is there to support counties that have been left behind year in, year out, for the last 55 years since Independence. The Equalisation Fund is supposed to help those counties. I do not see it considered here quite substantially. If anything, we are well aware that there has been money in the Equalisation Fund that has been overlooked in the past years as well. There is already Kshs11.3 billion that has already been left behind over the years that has not been paid to these counties. Therefore, we do not see it there again showing or factored in this Budget. The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor.

On the issue of public participation on this issue of the Budget, I see that there has been no over the board participation of all constituents particularly in my Wajir South Constituency. It has not done full participation of this simply because they did not get the opportunity to say whatever they wanted to say.

The other aspect is education. There are schools that barely have the resources required, particularly the schools in Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASAL). We are struggling to ensure that our children, who are nomadic pastoralists, are based in boarding schools and institutions where they can learn while their parents travel across our constituencies or across the country in search of pasture and water for the communities. That seems not to have been factored well in this Budget. I would like to see that such important issues are considered.

Another important thing that were not considered enough although it was considered on the face value is about safety nets or disaster management. For the safety nets, we have experienced global warming humanitarian crisis. One of it is about the drought and the famine that we have gone through over the past 20 years in this country that has ravaged almost all parts of the country. Farmers were not happy because there were no rains. Nomadic pastoralists were not happy because there was no grass and pasture. Therefore, that needed to have been considered.

Hon. Murunga, Member for Matungu.

Asante sana, Mhe. Naibu Spika wa Muda. Nachukua nafasi hii kuungana na wenzangu ambao wametoa mashauri mema kuhusu Bajeti ambayo tumekuwa nayo. Ningependa kusema kwamba niko na masikitiko kidogo kwa sababa kama mwanakamati wa Kamati ya Kilimo, kuna mradi ambao tulikuwa tumekutana na tukakubaliana kwamba kwanza utafiti ufanyike kwa sababu mradi huu umekuwa ukipokea fedha kwa miaka kadha lakini mavuno yake hayalinganishwi na fedha ambazo zimekuwa zikipelekwa kwa mradi huu. Pili, ningependa kusisitiza kwamba ikiwa tutaenda na mpangilio wa Serikali wa kufanya nchi hii iwe ya kujitegemea kwa chakula, ni lazima katika Bajeti yetu pia tuweke fedha za kutosha kwa ukulima kulingana na mipangilio ya nchi za Afrika Mashariki na Kati. Ninasikitika kwa sababu kuna kampuni ambazo ziko katika chumba cha mahututi. Kampuni hizi ni kama Mumias, Nzoia, Muhoroni na Chemelil. Wakulima ambao wako katika sehemu hizi wanategemea ukulima wa miwa lakini katika Bajeti yetu hatujazingatia maneno ya ukulima wa miwa. Unapata kwamba kwa wakati huu sukari nyingi inatolewa kutoka nchi za nje. Kama tungeweza kuzingatia ukulima wa miwa katika nchi hii na tuweze kusaidia kampuni hizi kama Mumias, Nzoia, Muhoroni na Chemelil, tungekuwa na sukari ya kutosha katika nchi hii na kufanya hata wakulima wetu wawe na furaha na wawe na bidii ya kulima miwa. Jambo la tatu katika mipangilio ya Serikali ni kwamba kila nyumba itakapofika mwaka wa 2030 iwe na stima. Kuna mito ambayo haikauki. Iko na maji mwaka mzima. Mito hii inatoka sehemu ya Nyanza na Magharibi. Kama tungezingatia kujenga mabwawa ya kuzalisha umeme, hatungekuwa na shida ya upungufu wa hali ya stima. Kwa hivyo ninaonelea kuwa siku zijazo tuzingatie kuweka fedha na kuwa na mipango ya kujenga mabwawa katika mito hii ambayo haikauki kamwe.

On a point of order, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker.

Order, Hon. Member! What is it, Hon. Korei, Member for Narok South?

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Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker. I am one of the Committee Members of the Budget and Appropriations Committee. This is a very important Motion and I think it needs a lot of consideration. When I look around, I do not see quorum in the House. We do not want this Motion to go just like that. Therefore, there is no quorum.

Hon. Members, you are within your right to raise that. Let me just confirm that.

Serjeant-At-Arms, can the Quorum Bell be rung for 10 minutes? I actually confirm that there is no quorum.

Very well, Hon. Members. We are clearly unable to raise the quorum. Therefore, pursuant to the provisions of Standing Order No.34(2), the time now being 6.39 p.m., the House stands adjourned until tomorrow Thursday, 7th June 2018 at 2.30 p.m.

The House rose at 6.39 p.m.

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