Finance minister Uhuru Kenyatta suffered brief humiliation when two errors in his proposal to Parliament seeking to access half the expenditure Budget were pointed out June 16, 2011. FILE
By ALPHONCE SHIUNDU, ashiundu@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted Thursday, June 16 2011 at 18:24
Posted Thursday, June 16 2011 at 18:24
Finance minister Uhuru Kenyatta suffered brief humiliation when two errors in his proposal to Parliament seeking to access half the expenditure Budget were pointed out.
Mr Martin Ogindo (Rangwe, ODM) and Mr Manson Nyamweya (South Mugirango, Ford People) told the minister that he needed to knock off fifty cents from the figure he had sought in order to comply with the Constitution.
Mr Ogindo said the minister’s request was above what was provided in the Constitution and the Fiscal Management Act, because the law stipulates that “not more than one-half” of the recurrent expenditure estimates can be accessed from the Consolidated Fund, before the enactment of the Appropriations Act.
“The total net estimates for development and recurrent is Sh736, 632,345,877. Fifty per cent of that is Sh368,316,172,938.50, not Sh368,316,172,939,” said Mr Ogindo.
That difference of 0.50cts had to be reviewed before the debate began.
Mr Nyamweya on his part, pointed at the fine print saying that the money that Parliament was about to approve was for the current financial year ending June 30, 2011 and not for the next budget (2011-2012), as it ought to be the case.
“These are people who have actually done a budget, half of which we are being told to approve today. How do you trust the budget they prepared without scrutinising it?” posed Mr Nyamweya.
The glaring errors rekindled memories of the minister’s past encounters with Parliament over a mix-up in figures –he termed the last one a computer/typing/printing error.
But Thursday, the minister was contrite and with the generosity of the temporary Deputy Speaker Ekwee Ethuro, was allowed to make amendments, correct the errors and have Parliament approve half the budget.
MPs supported the approval but with reservations about the process, more so, after the Finance Minister, in breach of the Constitution, failed to present the budget to Parliament by April 30, 2011 –two months before the end of the financial year.
“It is the responsibility of Parliament to do the budgeting process. If we’re going to authorise money under, say, the Ministry of Public Service and then Parliament decides that that ministry does not even deserve a third of what it has been given, yet we’ve already allocated one-half. How then will we deal with that?” posed Mr John Mbadi (Gwassi, ODM).
Dr Abdi Nuh (Bura, ODM) said the Treasury was abusing the “goodwill of Parliament” by forcing the House to pass motions dealing in money.
“Treasury’s failure to follow the law cannot be used to hoodwink this House to circumvent the law when it thinks fit,” Dr Nuh said.
“We have not even considered the estimates, how then will a minister or government seek half the budget that the House and the public have not even considered.”
Mr Ethuro said the estimates are before the Budget Committee and they’ll be prosecuted and so Parliament ought not to worry.
Earlier, Cabinet Minister Njeru Githae had told MPs that they “cannot shut down government because of 50 cents” .
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