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{
    "id": 1112671,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1112671/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 157,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Murkomen",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 440,
        "legal_name": "Onesimus Kipchumba Murkomen",
        "slug": "kipchumba-murkomen"
    },
    "content": "The promise of a successful devolution gave these people hope that 2013, 2014 up to 2015. The people who were road contractors or suppliers of goods or services to counties expanded their businesses in the hope that in the next dispensation, they would do more. They hired more staff and prepared themselves to become better service providers for the county government. However, as from 2017, many of these business people have been suffering because they have not been paid. Secondly, many of them have been auctioned because they borrowed from banks at a very high interest rate. Some contractors even borrowed money from shylocks like Sen. Wetangula stated earlier. I liked the phrase that Sen. Wetangula used from William Shakespeare that; ‘They come for a pound of flesh that is next to your heart.’ Madam Temporary Speaker, as a matter of fact, I can tell you that there are so many Kenyans who have committed suicide. Across the 47 counties, there are people who have committed suicide because of county governments failing to pay pending bills. There are people who have lost their families or divorced because they cannot explain to their families where they took the money. Some of the women contractors borrow money together with their husbands hoping that they expand their businesses and then they fail. Families are broken, people have committed suicide, others have lost their livelihood, their children cannot go back to school and so on due to the pending bills. This statement by Sen. Farhiya not merely to be discussed here. It might mutate to be a discussion on right to life. The lives and the business of the contractors who are owed are in danger. I saw the CS in charge of National Treasury, Ukur Yatani, giving orders to county government to pay pending bills. However, the governors have become clever. They decided to pretend to be doing some investigation, particularly those who were elected afresh in the second term on projects that were done by first term governors. Once they carry out some investigation or write a letter to the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC), the pending bills are left packed there. They say that they cannot touch those pending bills until they are cleared by the EACC. Some of the pending payments by the Governors who have served their first and second term are genuinely being investigated by the EACC. However, the investigations being held inordinately for a very long period of time leading to punishment of the local people. There is contribution that is being made by the EACC and the Office of the DCI in forcing the county governments not to pay the pending bills. In the process of doing the same, they are punishing Kenyans. Why do we not move beyond the statement that has been raised by Sen. Farhiya because the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal (PPAD) Act, 2015 states that you cannot procure if you do not have the money? Assuming counties procure because they had the money, then we need to deal with this issue of investigation, once and for all. I would rather those people get investigated when they have money and carry personal responsibility. If found culpable, they should be arrested, charged and their property confiscated than to make the assumption that they are thieves until they are proven innocent. Why should we then punish them to the extent that by the time you prove their innocence, they are perhaps dead? We must deal with this issue as a House. Sen. Farhiya’s Committee on Finance and Budget should move ahead and come up with legislative amendments. I know that there are already discussions about the time"
}