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{
    "id": 1000642,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1000642/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 1290,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kikuyu, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Kimani Ichung’wah",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1835,
        "legal_name": "Anthony Kimani Ichung'Wah",
        "slug": "anthony-kimani-ichungwah"
    },
    "content": "We need much more and, therefore, we must be more creative in how the Government will raise revenue. That brings me to the subject of our public debt. We have said it in this report that it is time the Government of Kenya entered into negotiations with our lenders to renegotiate our debt. In this year alone, just on interest redemption alone, we can save up to about Kshs180 billion. If we are able to renegotiate our loans, we will probably be able to save maybe Kshs300 billion or Kshs400 billion out of the Kshs800 billion that will pay and plough that money back to stimulate economic growth for our country. We must also be careful what kind of public debt we enter into. We are confronted with a situation where our National Treasury, as much as I will not tell you, are careful on whether to engage on debt renegotiation especially with the G20 countries because of the kind of commercial debt that we got ourselves into in yester years. We have spoken to this as a Budget and Appropriations Committee in the last almost three to four reports that we have done on the annual Estimates and supplementary budgets. We must have a very good balance between our commercial debt and what is concessional debt. The new Cabinet Secretary committed last year – and we will wait to see whether he will actualise what he said – that increasingly we will move from commercial debt to concessional loans. These commercial debts are what probably are making it difficult for us to go and renegotiate our debt with G20 countries that have already offered to renegotiate debt and allow us some fiscal space. The revenues will also be affected by the depressed private investments in this country with the COVID-19 pandemic. Our public investments in terms of our development expenditure will be reduced. Therefore, our revenues will not perform as well. Therefore, we will be confronted later in the year with a situation where we may have to relook into this budget. I foresee maybe in the next two to three months, we may have to review part of these Estimates and Budget that we have done now. This is because as I said, it was disappointing that from the word go, the National Treasury never reflected the realities of today’s issues like the issue of flooding. I am glad that after we raised that issue here on the Floor of this House, they came back and have provided money for flood mitigation. As the Vice-Chair said in Nyando, parts of Garissa and Tana River areas are flooded and more money has been provided towards irrigation projects that will also help in the creation of dams, especially even in ASAL areas and parts of Migori where they will harvest water that would, otherwise, be flood and ravage settlements where people live. In terms of our challenges, moving forward and providing solutions, it is up to this House to rise to the occasion. We have spoken about fiscal consolidation in the past, but in the next financial year, this fiscal consolidation must go beyond talk. We must actualise real and actual fiscal consolidation to ensure that we continue to reduce on our budget deficit so that we borrow less. You can see where our public debt situation is today and if we are not able to consolidate..."
}