Partnership for Change

Budget Campaign 2009: Walking the talk, the Citizens of the Republic of Kenya take charge and ask the Friends of Kenya to join hands to save Agenda 4 of the National Accord; This is a Call to Action by the Partnership for Change

 

Following the political and economic crisis triggered by the disputed announcement of the election of President Kibaki for a second term on December 30th 2007, it was hoped that Parliament would have used the opportunity presented by the National consensus on Agenda 4 to appropriate tax money for the benefit of the poorest of the poor and curb wasteful expenditure by the Government.   The 10th Parliament’s first two sessions have been a disappointment and unless public pressure is brought to bear the third session threatens to be a repeat.  Rather than using the parliamentary recess to promote national cohesion and consultations on necessary reform such as national budget realignment, MPs have spent the period heightening tensions amongst the population, and raising possibility of political and ethnic conflict. 

 

The recent divisions within the Grand Coalition and the public statements made by the leadership of both the ODM and PNU over what Justice Kriegler reported to be such a flawed election that there is no point in debating who won the Presidency; taken together with resignations of Narc Kenya ministers allegedly because of frustrated reform suggests that little or no attention is going to be focused on consultations over reform before Parliament reopens on April 21st 2009.  Certainly all these will affect the ability of MPs to focus on the need to tackle the budget deficit faced by Government by taking cost-reduction and cutting measures. 
Treasury’s pathetic stewardship of our public resources has cost Kenya billions of shillings every year, while Parliament’s lack of oversight has ensured that Kenyans are taxed to pay for waste, and corruption. There is policy paralysis in the Treasury as revenues dwindle, because there is no political will to reduce government recurrent expenditure or to deal with grand corruption.  The political management of the Treasury is wanting with the new Minister of Finance having little interest or competence in technical work while his Assistant Minister is ineffective.  It is only public pressure therefore that will ensure that the public interest in a refocused national budget is fulfilled.  The approach proposed also serves to redirect political discourse towards an area of much needed reform – the National Budget.  This serves to demobilize those bent on fomenting tensions for political reasons by concentrating the public on bread and butter issues for their MPs to address.

 

Reasons for refocusing the Budget Debate: 

 

The Partnership for Change is concerned that while Kenyans continue to demand accountability from the Government of Kenya and Parliament on the management of our Public Resources, the Government and National Assembly continue to ignore the public resulting in massive wasteful expenditure and massive irresponsible borrowing.  There is a need to ensure that the next National Budget to be presented in June 2009 does not look like the last one.  The Partnership for Change will mobilize public opinion to ensure that the Budget is development focused rather than recurrent expenditure focused.  

The National Budget as presently constituted is enmeshed in corrupt and wasteful expenditure and there is need for Kenyans to educate each other on this so that we can pressure our representatives to scrutinize the budget to identify such expenditure.  Savings can be used to boost development expenditure.  Mars Group’s analysis of the 2008/2009 budget points to numerous budget lines where Members of Parliament could have cut government expenditure: among these are the provisions in the national budget for foreign travel; fuel, utilities such as electricity and water; purchase and maintenance of motor vehicles; rent by the Government of premises; hospitality expenses; and taxation waivers and privileges of elected officials. Such waste has made the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals impossible and has in fact completely unbalanced the National Budget perhaps for years to come.   The Partnership for Change will use its national network to educate Kenyans on wasteful expenditure ahead of the budget and post budget to lobby MPs to scrutinize the budget presented in June by the Ministry of Finance.

 

The Budget 2009 Campaign:

The Partnership for Change is asking you to help us to campaign and encourage Kenyans to demand austerity measures and savings to be made in the National Budget, by Government and Parliament.  Money saved will be directed to the Development Budget. The Outcome will be to save approximately 200 Billion shillings, which if allocated to the Development Budget, will contribute enormously to Agenda 4 issues of the National Accord, such as unemployment, underdevelopment, starvation, food insecurity and impunity.

 

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You can download complete budget campaign 2009 here.

 

See white ribbon campaign for Jamuhuri day.

 

You can download material for campaign period here.