Why I was Also Against The 2.5 billion Shillings Golden Jubilee Celebrations

  

Date Posted: 8/4/2013 11:04:27 PM

Posted By: Abudennis  Membership Level: Silver  Total Points: 840

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The government was to set aside close to 2.5 billion shillings to be spent in December 2013 through a recommendation by a committee that had been set aside to budget for that day. For a celebration to mark the country’s golden jubilee since independence, 50 years now. It is good to spend, but good to spend when you have it. It is an ill doing to spend what you do not have.

I was happy to hear that the President later on dissolved this committee, since the government did not have enough funds to meet such spending, and that a committee that would give a reasonable budget would be formed. You and I both know that that is the truth. I love truth because under any conditions, it always remains to be the truth. Which country spends such an amount of money on such a celebration whereas a large part of its population is either made up of land squatters, internally displaced, affected by floods or famine? Then Kenya will be the first I will have heard of.

What was this committee thinking when setting forth such a budget? I may be talking and the so thrown away proposal be taken again, but I have a feeling it is unreasonable. Far beyond a country struggling to pay its employees and meeting its own budget. The country is running on a 1.4 trillion shilling budget, an amount that the country’s domestic tax income alone cannot run. Funds have to come in from international economic sponsors and from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Do we all think these parties will continue funding us if they realize we are spending whole 2.5 billion shillings to mark a golden jubilee? Let us not deal with probabilities, but facts.

This is a country running on debts

and well wishers we call as international business partners. We are not a business partner as they say, but a source of cheap market for their second hand goods. 2.5 billion shillings is enough to repair quite a reasonable length of road, enough amount to acquire land to settle our internally displaced persons that are almost facing a second election term living under tents. This money would construct dykes in flood stricken areas like Budalangi and Nyando, or sink boreholes in famine stricken areas of north Rift or North Eastern Provinces. We have pupils learning under trees in this nation and that means there schools are always closed during any rainy season. Let us reason well and focus on expenditures that will take this nation forward. Thanks to you Mr. President Uhuru Kenyatta for turning down that proposed earlier budget.

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