Uhuru Kenyatta will go down in history as the first Finance Minister to make a laughable blunder by reading a page twice while making his budget speech and then quickly correcting himself by the use of one Swahili word: “Tuelewane!” – Lets understand one another. Instead of laughing at the first President’s son, MPs were pleasantly amused because the Minister was repeating the part of the Budget they liked to hear most – that from now on so much money will be pumped into their constituencies, and that they will be able to build the most important roads in remote places they came from. To the MPs this was their Budget. The Budget they have been waiting for. The Budget that would boost their ego and make their Parliamentary seats— which happen to be their gold mines – very secure.
Blunder or no blunder, Uhuru’s Budget was instantaneously accepted so overwhelmingly that when he finished, he was literally mobbed by fellow MPs from all the political parties to be congratulated with warm hand-shakes and even bear-hugs. It was finally a most triumphant achievement by the Minister who, only a short while ago, had to publicly apologize to the nation for a very serious “typing error” in his supplementary estimate of the same budget. All the previous sins by Uhuru Kenyatta were forgotten and MPs were almost unanimous in accepting the fact the Gatundu MP’s Budget was one of the best since independence.
If there was anyone who was plotting to embarrass Uhuru and his PNU wing of the Government, under whose jurisdiction the Treasury falls, then that scheme had to be swept under the carpet as too many people were too pleased with the Finance Minister to entertain any criticism of the Budget immediately after his speech. In the impromptu comments MPs normally make to journalists’ symposium interviews after all Budget speeches, they all heaped up loads of praise for the Minister. Only Chris Okemo of ODM, a former Finance Minister, wondered how the Government was planning to implement Uhuru’s beautiful proposals.
Very often ministers’ plans for allocating resources are described as rich men’s Budget or the people’s Budget depending on what tax measures the Government takes to raise money form the people. If there is a suitable description for Uhuru’s Budget then the most appropriate one for it would be a Budget for the MPs. Pumping money into their constituencies is giving them the most powerful weapon for the 2012 elections. They will now have a story to tell the voters when they face their opponents. If the Minister’s plan works, the MPs will have roads, schools and dispensaries to show to the electorates as the fruits of their labour. No one can make them reject Uhuru’s budgetary proposals.
Just before the Budget speech was read there was such a serious tension in the House that the possibility of Uhuru getting his proposals accepted smoothly was extremely remote. To begin with the House did not have a leader of Government Business and it would not have been far fetched to imagine ODM arm-twisting PNU to get that position by threatening to shoot the Budget down. Now that possibility is very remote as the Budget has turned out to be too good to be true to the Parliamentarians. But as Chris Okemo says, the biggest test for both the Government and MPs is on how to implement the Uhuru proposals. Even more important will be the question of how to keep nepotism and corruption from all the development plans proposed by the new Budget.
So far the money entrusted to MPs as CDF cannot be said to be used without corruption and nepotism. A lot of noise has been made about the composition of constituency development committees; but the noise has constantly fallen on the Government’s deaf ears. Among the people misusing the CDF must be some very powerful sacred cows who so far have escaped Aaron Ringera’s ostensible sharp eye. When the CDFs were first introduced good proposals of auditing them were made. But the proposals seem to have vanished in thin air. If there has been any corruption in CDFs then the possibility of that corruption spreading into the new schemes announced by Uhuru Kenyatta is very real indeed. MPs will convince the people of
The significance of Uhuru’s Budget is that it encompasses both economic and political issues. It puts, for example, a huge amount of money to finance reforms and other Agenda Four issues while introducing far reaching policy subjects of concern with serious political implications. Ordinarily these are the changes associated with ODM rather than PNU policies. If ODM leaders heard of the policy changes involving devolution for the first time during the Minister’s speech then they certainly were caught with their pants down and it will be extremely difficult for them to oppose Uhuru’s proposals for the sake of opposition.
If on the other hand the Budget is a result of a joint consultation between Raila and Kibaki, then it will sail through Parliament like lightening. The trouble is that the Treasury is a very PNU part of the Government and the success of the Uhuru Budget is likely to be seen as a feather in the cap of PNU. When Prime Minister Raila Odinga makes a lot of noise about being kept in the dark while important policy issues are being determined, he has a point. If he wasn’t consulted on the policy issues introduced by Uhuru’s unique Budget, then he cannot be expected to coordinate its implementation comfortably.
On the other hand PNU can claim it was only providing funds to finance well defined policies found in the Raila-Kibaki Accord. Either way this is the one Budget that will find very few critics in Parliament. Its biggest challenge will be its effective implementation with the expected high standard of efficiency and transparency. Politicizing the Budget and supporting or opposing it on the basis of loyalty to ODM or PNU will be the most unfortunate thing to happen in Parliament. But in
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