Marende to rule on Budget estimates

House Speaker Kenneth Marende will rule on Tuesday whether Kenya's Budget will be read on June 8 May 31, 2011. FILE

By ALPHONCE SHIUNDU
Posted  Tuesday, May 31 2011 at 16:43

House Speaker Kenneth Marende will rule on Tuesday whether Kenya's Budget will be read on June 8.

Mr Marende told MPs that he will deliver his ruling a day before Treasury's planned date to present the budget in Parliament.

Mr Marende told the legislators during Tuesday's afternoon session that they had burdened him with a difficult task especially given that government had talked at "cross purposes".

While Ministers Amos Kimunya and Sam Ongeri said Finance minister Uhuru Kenyatta should be allowed to read the estimates, their cabinet colleague James Orengo said Mr Kenyatta should get away with flouting the Constitution.

Earlier, Parliament’s Budget Committee had indicated that Mr Kenyatta would not read the Budget as scheduled on June 8.

Speaking at a meeting at Nairobi’s Continental House, the MPs also resolved to have Mr Kenyatta reprimanded for breaching the Constitution when he failed to submit the estimates as stipulated in the Constitution.

Besides, the MPs said they’ll ask House Speaker Kenneth Marende to force the minister to apologise to the nation for flouting the Constitution and to immediately comply with the requirement that he should submit the budget to the House immediately for scrutiny.

They gave the minister until Tuesday next week, after which, they said, they will tell the Speaker to weigh in and force the minister to present the estimates in Parliament or be banned from conducting business in Parliament.

Later in the afternoon, Ms Martha Karua (Gichugu, Narc Kenya) asked the Speaker to rule on the legal controversy, and as the chairman of the Parliamentary Service Commission, the Speaker took a preliminary view that there was no reason why the minister had failed to submit the budget to the committee for scrutiny.

The frontbench led by Justice Minister Mutula Kilonzo, Transport Minister Amos Kimunya and Education Minister Sam Ongeri then lobbied the MPs in Parliament to support the reading of the budget next week saying that it was crucial to push the integration in the East Africa Community forward. But the hawkish backbenchers held that the EAC treaties were inferior to the Constitution and thus the priority in obeying the law was first to the Constitution.

At the Budget Committee, the lawmakers also denied ever granting the minister a 30-day extension to present the Budget, saying they had advised him to seek that extension from Parliament, and still the minister did not do so.

Committee chairman Elias Mbau led members John Mbadi (Gwassi, ODM), Mohammed Abdikadir (Mandera Central, Safina), Ekwee Ethuro (Turkana Central, PNU), Mithika Linturi (Igembe South, Kanu), Danson Mungatana (Garsen, Narc Kenya) and Abdul Bahari (Isiolo South, Kanu) in making the resolution.

The MPs went through the records of their meetings with the Treasury and recorded that on three occasions, the minister had ignored the committee’s rulings and thus, he had to be reprimanded for doing that. Yesterday, Treasury mandarins showed up at the meeting without the minister or the permanent secretary Joseph Kinyua and they were turned away.

Mr Mbau, Mr Mbadi and Mr Linturi said the new Constitution had no provision for Mr Kenyatta to read the budget in the House. They said the law was clear that the minister had to submit the annual estimates to the committee as soon as possible.

The trio cited article 221 of the Constitution as the basis for their assertions, and reading it together with section 31(2) of the Transition and Consequential Clauses, they said, the minister donned the clothes of the Cabinet Secretary as far as budget-making is concerned.

They said the article 221, it that deals with the budget-making process had not been suspended until the next elections, and thus, it had to be complied with.

“Many Kenyans are reading this Constitution and expect compliance. It appears the Executive was ill-prepared,” Mr Ethuro added.

They said there was no reason why Parliament and the Judiciary had submitted the budget yet the Treasury was insisting on holding onto the national budget.

“It could be that some people are trying to pull strings from behind, so we have to be very vigilant,” said Mr Linturi.

Mr Mohammed, the chairman of the Constitutional Implementation Oversight Committee said the Treasury’s reluctance at complying with article 221 was ill-informed.

“If there’s any particular requirement that has to be fulfilled in the Constitution; it is not a choice about whether you’ll comply or not. You have to comply,” the CIOC chairman said.

He added that the challenge was in transiting from the old dispensation of pompous reading of the Budget to the new one where the budget-making role is the preserve of the Budget Committee and Parliament’s Budget Office. He said the minister was already in contempt of the law and should rectify the problem before the matter moved on.

“We’re not seeking his indulgence. Part of Parliament’s work is oversight, so we demand compliance from the Treasury,” he added.

Mr Mbau said the minister won’t read the Budget, because, according to Parliament’s legal opinion, article 221 took precedence in the process and therefore, if the minister went ahead to read the budget next week, he’d be committing a second breach on the law.

He said the 30-day extension being spoken of by the Treasury was non-existent, because, the minister was meant to tell the nation that he had breached the Constitution and was thus supposed to “confess to the public and seek forgiveness.”

“We asked them to seek that extension from the House to absolve the committee, but they failed,” said Mr Mbau.

All EAC nations are reading their budgets on June 8, for the simultaneous enactment of tariffs on the Common Market