Busia Senator Okiya Omtatah has yet again moved to Court seeking to halt the ongoing public participation in the Finance Bill 2024, claiming it was tabled prematurely.
Senator Omtatah and Eliud Karanja Matindi contend that the Finance Bill, 2024, can only be constitutionally introduced in the National Assembly after Parliament has procedurally passed the Appropriation Act, 2024.
According to Omtatah, not setting up the appropriation act before presenting the Bill is against article 220 of the constitution.
Article 220 states that “Budgets of the national and county governments shall contain— estimates of revenue and expenditure, differentiating between recurrent and development expenditure”.
The Petitioners argue that the Finance Bill, 2024, has been tabled prematurely because there is no approved fiscal framework for the Financial Year 2024/2025, which it is supposed to implement.
“The approved fiscal framework will only come to life with the enactment, with public participation, of the Appropriation Act, 2024,” says Omtatah.
The Senator wants the court to issue an order suspending the consideration by the National Assembly, the Finance Bill 2024, which was published in Nairobi on May 9 2024, in a Special Issue of the Kenya Gazette.
