You have no powers to alter Judiciary budget, Yatani told

Parliament has told the Treasury that it has no powers to unilaterally slash the budget of the Judiciary.

MPs told off Acting National Treasury Cabinet Secretary Ukur Yatani (pictured) for usurping the constitutional roles of the National Assembly.

The lawmakers protested the decision by the Treasury to slash the budget of the Judiciary by close to Sh3 billion, seriously impacting on the operations of the courts, saying the Executive does not have such powers as they are only vested in the National Assembly.

The legislators termed the circular issued by Yatani which cut the Judiciary’s budget from Sh14.5 billion to Sh11.5 billion as misplaced, noting slashing of a budgetary allocation that has already been passed by the House can only be altered through a Supplementary Budget, which also must be approved by Parliament.

They argued that as long as the Cabinet Secretary had not presented a Supplementary Budget to the National Assembly to alter the allocations approved by the National Assembly, then he cannot purport to take away any allocation that had had been appropriated. 

“From where I sit, and knowing the powers given to this House, this is not a serious matter. We cannot be discussing the CS’s memo. This House has its constitutional powers to budget and appropriate resources. In the event that the projection the minister gave is not achievable, he can only come to this House with a Supplementary Budget,” said Majority Leader Aden Duale.

Homa Bay MP Peter Kaluma had demanded that Speaker Justin Muturi give direction on whether the National Assembly had acted in vain as the budgeting authority by allocating the funds to Judiciary only for the CS to slash the monies through a memo.

“Parliament does not act in vain and its constitutional mandate should be respected. The minister should come here with Supplementary Budget if he wants any allocation altered. It is not about Judiciary only, but any area where this House has allocated funds,” Mr Kaluma said.  

Minority Leader John Mbadi said what Yatani was attempting to do was both irregular and wrong as it amounted to him interfering with the operations of other government institutions, contrary to Article 94 of the Constitution.

He said although the CS had indicated the move as part of the austerity measures, the same should be done within the law and respecting that the appropriation of funds is an exclusive function of Parliament.