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{
    "id": 1091003,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1091003/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 1216,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Mutula Kilonzo Jnr.",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13156,
        "legal_name": "Mutula Kilonzo Jnr",
        "slug": "mutula-kilonzo-jnr"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Madam Temporary Speaker. I rise to support this Prompt Payment Bill, 2021. I will be brief so that we can allow the Mover to reply before we rise. This Bill is good and I congratulate both Sen. Farhiya and Sen. Sakaja, but it is unfortunate. This is because we have gotten to a place where we have to get into the details of doing business in this format. It is terrible. I was among the first students to study the business studies curriculum when it was introduced sometime in the 1980s. This is not what it was meant to be. There are things that they Call Cash on Delivery (COD). The Public Finance Management Act, that you, the Committee on Finance and I have been belabouring time and again says you cannot procure unless you have a budget. Now we are prescribing when people should be paid. It is wrong. Let me tell you what the tragedy about this is. County and national entities have made it impossible for people to get payments so that they can get handouts. Whether it is Nairobi, Makueni, Machakos, or Kisumu County, they refuse to pay so that you can go and look for them. There are cartels. Madam Temporary Speaker, the biggest losers are young people. Young people are not interested in doing business with counties because you will be requested for a 10 per cent before you do the procurement and when you will be issued with the first certificate. By the time you are due for the third payment, they have bankrupted you. I have seen contractors in Makueni County who are saying we do not want to trade with you. If you collect money from a bank and you pay 13 per cent interest, actually it is the bank that benefits from contracts that are given to people in this country. It is not traders. It is so unfortunate and sad that it has come to this. If a person wanted to trade and Sen. Sakaja and Sen. Farhiya have suggested this should cover national government. If somebody wanted to look at our business structure out there in the diaspora and found things like this, they would not invest. It is discouraging because we have prescribed in detail that you know you have to be paid. Your invoice is not ready, come and correct. That is wrong. Madam Temporary Speaker, if there is one credit I would give Gov. (Prof.) Kibwana it is not having pending bills. The rest of the governors, including my friend Sen. Sakaja, who wants to be the governor of Nairobi City County will inherit pending bills. The first thing he will do is hide himself because the contractors will be on his neck. He will to have an office somewhere not in City Hall. His friend Gov. Sonko did not have an office in Upper Hill because there was something wrong at City Hall. It is because you cannot sit there. People are on your neck. There are decrees upon decrees. There are garnishee orders upon garnishee orders on the County Government of Nairobi City. Governors are opening multiplicities of accounts because of garnishee orders. Should it not be a part of our national ethos that if somebody gives you a service, you pay?"
}