Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 1074207,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1074207/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 168,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Murkomen",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 440,
        "legal_name": "Onesimus Kipchumba Murkomen",
        "slug": "kipchumba-murkomen"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Speaker, Sir, Sen. Poghisio is rarely here. When he is here, he is in such a hurry. Where is he rushing to? This is a very important Chamber. In fact, I thought Sen. Poghisio was rising to add a very important question to this. Do you see the danger that is in this hurried merger of Kenya Pipeline Corporation (KPC) and the Kenya Ports Authority (KPA)? Kenyans have been raising very serious questions about the viability of the Kenya Railways Corporation (KRC) to repay its loans borrowed from China. I am glad that this question was brought by Sen. Cheruiyot and the Committee will investigate it conclusively. Mr. Speaker, Sir, in an interview in December 2018, the President promised the people of Kenya that he was going to make public the loan agreement between the Republic of Kenya, KRC and the Chinese company, China Road and Bridge Company (CRBC) that is doing the railway. From December 2018 up to now, despite direct Presidential promise, those documents have not been made public. Nobody has done a follow up to find out why they were not made public. The people of Kenya want to know if we are in a position to repay our loans. Is KRC, how it is structured and how the loan was structured, capable of carrying out this responsibility? Mr. Speaker, Sir, I suspect the reason why KPA and KPC have been brought in is because someone knows that these are profit making companies; they are doing well on their own. So, merging them together is to give them the strength to repay the loan for the KRC. That is dangerous because in the event that KRC is unable to repay the loans to the China Roads and Bridge Company and the Government of China, these corporations will be taken away the same way it has happened in countries like Sri Lanka, among others. This is not a simple question about why corporations were merged or who the lawyers were and what was the legal framework, it is deeper than that. We want to know what was the motive or objective of bringing in corporations that are doing well. There was a taskforce that was formed by the President to investigate parastatals and it returned a verdict that there many corporations that are not viable, should be wound up, merged together and form one corporation to ensure that we do not waste public resources in various corporations that are doing the same things. However, you go"
}