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{
    "id": 101052,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/101052/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 286,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Raila",
    "speaker_title": "The Prime Minister",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 195,
        "legal_name": "Raila Amolo Odinga",
        "slug": "raila-odinga"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, in some isolated cases, Parliament has acted in vain. This has tended to hamper the implementation of projects. We have had cases here, and hon. Members are aware, where questions are raised here regarding procurement; whether it is purchase of equipment or award of contracts or tenders. The losing contractor in a tender would go behind the scenes to contract services of Members of Parliament to come and raise Questions here that there is some kind of corruption or money has changed hands and, therefore, the Government runs the risk of losing a lot of money. I say this because once that happens, then investigations begin and the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission (KACC) is involved. The Procurement Oversight Authority moves in and the contract is cancelled. By the time the investigations are over, six months will have been lost. When the retendering process starts, the costs will have gone up, so that the contract will be implemented at a highly inflated price. Most of the time, we close the financial year with the Ministries not spending even half the money which was allocated by Parliament. So, I was just sounding a warning to the House that it is incumbent upon Members of the House to carry out their own internal audit. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I have also said that the Office of the Prime Minister is prepared to co-operate fully with the House and provide full information and disclosure on issues which the House sometimes spends more time investigating. This is because to investigate such complicated contracts like procurement of the highly technical items, award of tenders and so on, it would require Parliament to duplicate the expertise which is available in the Ministries. That is why I said that Parliament does not on its own, have proper expertise to carry out professional investigations. I stand to be contradicted if Parliament has got the capacity to investigate technical award of tenders, for example, for road and housing construction and procurement of medicines. I would like to repeat what I said that Parliament must actually benefit from the technical expertise available elsewhere. That is why I have offered the services of the Efficiency Monitoring Unit (EMU), Inspectorate of State Corporations----"
}