Parliamentary Budget Committee Chairman Mutava Musyimi (left) and
Cabinet Secretary for Treasury Henry Rotich. The Treasury Tuesday has
formally sought the National Assembly’s approval for the payment of
Sh1.4 billion to two Anglo Leasing firms. Photo/SALATON NJAU | FILE
The Treasury has formally sought the National Assembly’s approval for the payment of Sh1.4 billion to two Anglo Leasing firms.
The
money is part of the Sh13.4 billion whose spending the House has been
asked to approve in the second Supplementary Budget Estimates, on which
debate started Tuesday evening.
Treasury wants MPs to
approve the withdrawal of the cash from the Consolidated Fund, part of
which has already been used in the payments to First Mercantile
Securities Corporation and Universal Satspace.
The
Budget and Appropriations Committee, which had prepared a report with
the Finance, Trade and Planning Committee recommending that the
government pay the two firms, has already discussed the Supplementary
Estimates and presented a report in the House.
The payments are discussed as an increase in the amount budgeted for loan repayments.
“Another
notable increase is an amount of Sh1.5 billion in the new loans item,
presumably to pay for the Anglo Leasing contracts.
The
approval of these estimates by the National Assembly therefore, will
regularise the payments,” says the report, presented by Budget Committee
chairman Mutava Musyimi.
This could mean that the Rev
Musyimi won’t have to ask the House to adopt the report prepared
earlier by the Budget and Finance teams.
He had been
forced to withdraw the motion for its adoption at the last minute on May
29 when both Jubilee and Cord MPs vowed to reject any attempts to have
the House approve payments to shadowy companies.
Treasury criticised
The
committee has also criticised Treasury for failing to take into account
MPs’ criticism of the manner in which the estimates are presented.
It was also not pleased that Treasury had presented two supplementary budget estimates for the second year.
Supplementary
Budget Estimates are used to cater for areas where insufficient funds
were allocated and also for urgent or unforeseen spending.
Kisumu
East Shakeel Shabbir acknowledged that the estimates cover the Anglo
Leasing-type firms and encouraged his colleagues to approve them.
“For
whatever it is, good or bad, it is done and we’re verifying it and
approving it. That’s good. Let’s get that and put it behind us. But at
the same time, there are many other scandals going on,” said Mr Shabbir.
Minority Leader Francis Nyenze however appeared not
to have noticed the payments and asked the Budget Committee to
concentrate on issues that haven’t been addressed in the estimates.
“As
a coalition, we felt it wasn’t fair to pay the Anglo Leasing, and I’m
happy that the Jubilee government has taken it up now and we’re seeing
that some big fish will be caught if it’s just not a public exercise to
silence criticism,” he said.
“But payment to such
shadowy figures should never have happened and should never have been
done in this country,” he added as he supported the approval of the
estimates.
John Mbadi said that by presenting two
supplementary budget estimates to Parliament at the tail end of the
financial year, Treasury was abusing the budget-making process.
He
said from his interpretation of the various laws and parts of the
Constitution dealing with financial issues, even the one traditional
Supplementary Budget shouldn’t ideally be brought to Parliament.
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