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{
    "id": 1117621,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1117621/?format=api",
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    "content": "The President told us that, as we go out there drumming support for the preferred presidential candidate for next year, the first thing that should come to mind is that the Executive must be honest. I have been candid in my submission that we are so corrupt. In fact, the Executive is leading in terms of corruption. Recently, the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) also requested and was granted to consolidate all those cases on the Arror and Kimwarer dams for them to be tried afresh. Whenever we lose money, we do not take it seriously as something that will affect us. We borrow so much to build more infrastructure in the country. However, we end up over-borrowing because what we borrow and budget for disappears midways. This will make it difficult for future generations to survive and enjoy living in our country. Some of us want to have as many children as possible. However, when you ask your colleagues, they will say that they already owe Kshs120,000 and any child born in this country owes the international community and International Monetary Fund (IMF) about Kshs150,000. I expected this Committee to come up with aggressive recommendations that will teach us to live within our means. If we continue to borrow, the money will go to service the debt and our county governments, which we represent here, will not get their sharable revenue. Madam Temporary Speaker, I have to confess that the last time we had the debate to increase the debt ceiling of the country to Kshs9 trillion, I supported it. This is because I was promised that we were increasing the debt ceiling, so that we can do away with commercial loans, which are expensive and increase the concessional loans, which will have a long-term maturity date to allow the country to catch up. However, that is not happening. The National Treasury came here and gave us one story, but continued to borrow money from commercial banks. If you take the books of Kenya Power, you will be shocked. They owe so much money, in dollars, to two commercial banks in this country. One is Equity Bank and the other is Standard Chartered Bank, although I stand corrected. The fact that we are not controlling and are now passing the mantle to the National Treasury and asking them to come up with a legislative proposal, so that we can define appropriate fiscal consolidation measures instead of us doing it, leaves a lot to be desired. It is us who should come up with proper legislation. We should not expect the person executing or implementing to come up with a proposal. They will design something that will better them. It is us who are tasked with the mandate to oversight who should come up with serious amendments to the Public Finance Management Act that restricts the borrowing and ensures that we, first of all, realign the existing resources. Presidential candidates seek mandate from us. For example, the current administration talked about the Big Four Agenda. One is the manufacturing sector. How do you then turn back and over-tax the manufacturing sector and impose taxes, such that when importing anything into the country, you end up paying triple the amount it cost for you to buy? How do you build up the manufacturing sector? The second was housing. The cost of a bag of cement, depending on what you are constructing, is between Kshs550 to Kshs1000. If you tax the raw materials, how do you"
}