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{
    "id": 1000686,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1000686/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 1334,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Suba South, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. John Mbadi",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 110,
        "legal_name": "John Mbadi Ng'ong'o",
        "slug": "john-mbadi"
    },
    "content": "Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, there is my pet area that I have talked about for a very long time. Allow me to repeat it because I really do not know whether the National Treasury listens. The issue of public debt is now an emergency in this country. We need to be bold and candid and tell the Executive that we need a day to have a national dialogue on public debt. If you listened to the Mover of the Motion and the Seconder, this is what they said. This is what the Budget and Appropriations Committee is saying. Out of the projected revenue collection of Kshs1.62 trillion which is down from Kshs1.64 trillion, Kshs904 billion will be used in debt repayment or servicing out of which over 51 per cent is just servicing interest. This means that only 49 per cent of Kshs904 billion will pay the principal debt borrowed. If you take Kshs904 billion from our projected revenue collection and add to it other recurrent expenditure…. In fact, the total recurrent expenditure, including debt servicing, is Kshs1.8 trillion which is already more than the projected revenue collection which is Kshs1.62 trillion. I want to be cautious. What does that tell you? It tells you that over Kshs200 million will be borrowed to pay recurrent expenditure. That is the reality which is a blatant violation of the Public Finance Management (PFM) Act and the Constitution. We cannot continue like this. A time has to come when we have to stop this. By the way, Kshs1.8 trillion still excludes the transfers to counties. We all know that the largest percentage of a lot of money that we take to the counties goes to recurrent expenditure but not development. If the whole of it goes to development expenditure, we would be happy. We, as a country, have reached a point where we are unable to service our debts and we must sit down and discuss it."
}