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{
    "id": 1072127,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1072127/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 375,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Nominated, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. David ole Sankok",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13166,
        "legal_name": "David Ole Sankok",
        "slug": "david-ole-sankok"
    },
    "content": "whole lot that we had to maintain in terms of offices, infrastructure and wages for themselves, wages for their workers and also to fuel their vehicles. It was an additional burden to the Government. The infrastructural projects that the Jubilee Government earmarked were also another very heavy burden to the taxpayer who is already overtaxed. The infrastructure of 7,000 new kilometres of tarmac, rural electrification projects, free maternity, free primary and secondary education, were all extra burdens that we had to bear. You know it is not the Government, it is the taxpayer. The Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) was also a massive burden. So many other projects and allocations to county governments which now stand at 18 per cent and all these came from the same taxpayer that is here and was there even in the previous regime. So, we as a Government had to be innovative. I thank the Leader of the Majority Party and Chairlady of the Departmental Committee on Finance and National Planning. Is it Hon. Wanga, Nyasuguta or Nyasuna? I thank them because this is where we have to be innovative and think of ways of taking care of this extra burden without overburdening the taxpayers who have remained constant throughout this period. One of these very important ways has been used all over the world, that is, public private partnerships. It is where the private sector come with their money, whether they come from within or outside this country, invest in roads like the Expressway and then they charge for use, just the way malls and apartments are built by the private sector and charge rent to recoup their money. In this partnership, the Government is the owner of the land. The private sector pumps in their money and charge for some duration they recoup their investment; a reasonable amount of profit and then hand over to the country. By doing this, we will be able to achieve a lot as a country. Through the public private partnership, we will be able to create more jobs. A pertinent question is: How many Kenyans are employed by the Government? Almost 700,000, not even one million people. How many Kenyans are employed in the private sector, whether informal or formal? They are 81 per cent. Almost 15 million Kenyans are employed in the private sector, working and earning. By increasing the catchment area through public private partnerships it means we bring more investors on board to create more jobs. Very soon you will find that 90 per cent of our workforce is in the private sector. I will bring amendments at the Committee of the whole House so that we can be very specific on timelines when the project must start and end, and timelines by which we will know that the private investor has already benefited and got their investment money and some reasonable profit so that we do not have the public private partnership open for eternity—that the person who has built the Nairobi Expressway will charge Kenyans for the next 200 years. We have to know and judge from our traffic how much time they require, so that they can also negotiate pricing to attract more people to use those roads. That way, within some duration of time they will hand over the project back to us. The land remains ours."
}