Narok Senator Ledama Ole Kina on Tuesday faulted the government for presenting unjustifiable figures during the budget-making process.
While analysing the budget policy statement ahead of parliament resumption on Tuesday, February 13, Ledama, who appeared on Citizen TV daybreak show, accused the legislature of inflating budget figures without clearly showing how the money would be raised.
“It's quite fancy and sexy to come out and say we are going to spend Ksh3 trillion in the budget and yet we are not clearly showing how we are going to raise the money,” Ledama stated.
According to Ledama, poor budget performance can be attributed to improper government policies and mismanagement by the executive.
Ledama, while addressing the issue of budget underperformance, urged legislators to not only audit financial statements made by the government but also scrutinize budget execution.
"Midway, we always come up with supplementary budgets, we seriously need to look at these policies," the Senate Minority Whip stated.
The Senator also accused Parliament of failing to conduct adequate public participation during the budget-making process.
According to Ledama, legislators need to listen and consider public views during the budget-making stage to have full knowledge of what the people want.
"Parliament must take public participation seriously, I want to be very candid, and I know some people do not like it because they think it is a bit unorthodox being a parliamentarian to say that we do not take public participation seriously," Senator Ledama noted.
"We must engage the citizens, we do not always know it all. We need to get from the citizens what it is that they want done during a particular period."
While weighing in on the matter, Tax Expert Alex Kanyi who backed Ledama, faulted the government for budget deficits in every financial year. Kanyi accused the government of giving false hope when to the implementation of its budget policies.
"We hope to get a more serious Parliament that will check whatever is presented, question what the executive is doing and hold it to account," Kanyi noted.
Meanwhile, Abraham Rugo, the Country Manager of International Budget Partnership, pointed out that as parliament resumed its sittings on February 13th, it presented the best opportunity to make adjustments to the previous budget policy statement.
According to Rugo, a budget policy statement is important because it sets the direction of where the country wants to go in the coming financial year.
