Treasury beats Parliament’s budget estimates deadline

By Martin Mutua

Nairobi, Kenya: The National Assembly received budgetary estimates for the current financial year 2013/2014 from the Treasury on Tuesday evening.

House Clerk Justin Bundi said the estimates would be made public today after Leader of Majority Aden Duale tables them in the House.

“We received the budget estimates and the Government has managed to comply with the constitutional requirement,” he told The Standard on Wednesday.

He said according to rules, upon receiving the documents, the Government has three days to table them in the House, which means that would stretch upto Friday.

However, Bundi said since yesterday was a holiday, and there will there be no session on Friday, the only other time the estimates can be brought to House is this afternoon.

He also disclosed that the Judicial Service Commission and Parliamentary Service Commission had met the statutory requirement of delivering their budgetary estimates to the House on Tuesday.

Bundi noted the two budgets for the different arms of Government would also be tabled before the House this afternoon.

Both Parliament and the Judiciary, being independent arms of Government and delinked from the Executive, prepare separate budgets that will be used to run the administration of their respective institutions, including recurrent and development expenditures.

This includes salaries and remunerations for MPs and staff of Parliament while for Judiciary it caters for salaries of judges and magistrates as well as other staff.

Stand-off

Their budgets also include any other development activities Judiciary could be undertaking, which they must factor in their budget.

There has been a standoff between Parliament and the Salaries and Remuneration Commission on whether salaries of members should be reduced from Sh851,000 to Sh500,000.

Members have not received their salaries arising from the stand-off. Several members indicated they are not in hurry to do so until the matter is fully addressed.

Bundi said the newly constituted Parliamentary Service Commission (PSC) members, which will be in charge of the administration of Parliament, will be known this afternoon after their names are tabled in the House for approval.

According to Article 127 of the Constitution, the PSC shall consist of ten members with National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi as Chair while his deputy will be elected among members of the commission.

Seven members will be from both Houses with Jubilee coalition taking four slots, two from the National Assembly and two from the Senate while Cord will nominate three from both Houses.