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{
    "id": 1056531,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1056531/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 223,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Ikolomani, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Bernard Shinali",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1598,
        "legal_name": "Benard Masaka Shinali",
        "slug": "benard-masaka-shinali"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, for this opportunity. First, I want to thank the leadership of the Budget and Appropriations Committee, Hon. Kanini Kega and the membership at large for sitting long hours and ensuring that they have presented to this House a good and candid report. I will just comment on a few areas which I think I will add because my chairperson has already talked. I want to look at the energy sector. This is addressing wastage and expensive enterprises that we should not be entertaining as a country. Listening to the Chairperson of the Departmental Committee on Energy, we realise that Kenya generates more power than what it requires and surprisingly we have private energy generating companies, which have been contracted by the Government. They are generating power at Kshs35 yet our State-owned Geothermal Development Company (GDC) is generating at about Kshs7.5 shillings. These private owned generating companies have entered into long term agreements with the Government where they are not able to come out easily. As a Committee, we recommended that the Government looks into ways of how they can exit those agreements because we cannot have Government companies with team power, but let private companies make a lot of money from this country. We really require this money. Another area where we observed as a Committee is Government projects which have stalled. This Government has invested a lot of money in buildings which unfortunately have not been occupied. They are either 70 or 80 per cent complete and the Government is not allocating them more money for them to be completed so that they can be ready for occupation. For example, Mitihani House requires about Kshs600 million to be complete, and the Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) will occupy it to save on the rent they are paying. What does this amount to? Every time the project remains stalled, there is interest charged by the contractors, which means at the end of the day the Government will pay 10 times the initial contract sum. We have Ronald Ngala in Mombasa which always appears in the Budget. What happens? When we appropriate money on the same, the money is either not sent or it is removed and the The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}