Lugari Mp Ayub Savula has blamed the new constitution promulgated in 2010 for the current financial crisis facing the country.
Speaking at Maturu Technical Training Institute in his Lugari constituency, Savula said the constitution was proving to be a big burden to Kenyan citizens.
The MP said all was not well in the country following the admission by the National Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich, that the country was at the moment facing a serious financial crisis.
He said the CS admitted before the national assembly’s budget committee that the cash crunch was partly caused by external and internal debt repayment and low tax collections by the Kenya Revenue Authority
Savula singled out bloated national and county assemblies, independent constitutional commissions and the senate as some of the factors which have heavily contributed to the current monetary catastrophe in the country.
“This cash crunch has been caused by several factors, one of them being bloated assemblies, we have the national assembly with more than 349 members, we have the senate, we have bloated assemblies in the 47 counties with thousands of MCAs ,” said Savula.
Savula said the country needs to lay down strategies to curb the crisis, proposing the reduction of the number of nominated MPs and MCAs, reducing the number of constituencies and scrapping the senate, as some of the measures to streamline cash flow at the treasury and ensure the country sustains itself from the little revenue collected by KRA.
On the commissions the legislator said the current constitution had several independent commissions that sits on daily basis doing nothing saying some of them should be abolished and the remaining be converted into part time entities.
“This constitution has so many parastatal bodies and many independent commissions that sits on daily basis, we need a system whereby we can merge these bodies and other commissions should sit on part time basis only when required but not on daily basis so that we can just pay them allowances but not salaries,” he said.
Due to high interest rate on the money borrowed from foreign countries, the MP said the country should reduce external borrowing and live by its own means and at the same time asked both the national and county governments to meanwhile suspend services and development projects that are not of priority and only focus on delivery of those considered to be of imperative magnitude.
He also a urged the government to seal all corruption loopholes as well as put proper checks and balances in order to streamline cash flow at the treasury.
“We should reduce a lot of external borrowing because of the interest factors on the money that the country borrows, we have to live within our means, lets seal all corruption loopholes and also suspend all non-priority services and development and focus on priority issues to save the country,” he said