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{
    "id": 1119243,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1119243/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 320,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Kibiru",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13196,
        "legal_name": "Charles Reubenson Kibiru",
        "slug": "charles-reubenson-kibiru"
    },
    "content": "months of the adoption of this Report the National Treasury shall submit to Parliament a legislative proposal setting out the appropriate fiscal consolidation measures required to reduce the public debt stock to a sustainable level over the medium term. If they do not, we will come up with methods of enforcing it. Secondly, we recommended that the National Treasury should utilize the non- debt options for public investment and submit a report to Parliament on a quarterly basis. Since we also dealt with the Public Private Partnership Bill, that is why one feels a bit constrained when we are not passing that Public Private Partnership Bill because it will alleviate some of these challenges that we are facing in borrowing. As much as we hate, we must also be able to provide a solution because this is our country and we must be seen to be responsible. The other recommendation is that the National Treasury should restructure the public debt stock by undertaking the financing options, by either retiring or replacing expensive debts with debts that have more favourable borrowing terms such as concessional loans. This is what we had been promised and we need to hold those who promise us to account because we did it in good faith. We also want to address transparency and we want the National Treasury to, within six months of the adoption of this Report to operationalize the IFMIS debt management module and grant access to the Central Bank of Kenya, office of the Controller of Budget and office of the Auditor-General for monitoring. Madam Deputy Speaker, we will bring another Report to this House because IFMIS is also being mismanaged by the same National Treasury. We will also table a Report that will show that there are several modules that would have curtailed some of the issues that we have been seeing around that they have not been able to operationalize or reluctantly or deliberately have refused to operationalize. We have also recommended that the Treasury should submit to Parliament the debt register, publish the same on quarterly basis in the Kenya Gazette so that it is available for scrutiny by the public. I was watching something where Aristotle back in 332 BC said: “Whatever is public must be made public”. Some of these things are not starting today. So, when we say they do this, it is something that has come of age. Another thing that we discovered while we were dealing with this is another very worrying situation in this country. This is where entities; both the national Government and the county governments have with impunity taken suppliers’ credit without honoring payment. It is good that we passed the Prompt Payment Bill in this House. However, even before the Bill becomes law we should note that we have a very serious problem when it comes to pending bills. Even though pending bills do not form part of the debt stock, these are current liabilities owed to providers of goods and services. As such the National and county treasuries should update the public expenditure recording system to ensure that the payment of pending bills is prioritized. This will also improve investor confidence. As Sen. Nyamunga will tell you, there are very many people who are under stress. There was a Bill here where we were talking about mental health and that is one of the issues affecting the business community because of pending bills. My county of Kirinyaga as we talk now, has pending bills of Kshs432 million. That is what is legitimate. There is what is called illegible that is over Kshs600 million. I am happy that today I saw Governor Kiraitu committing the County Assembly of Meru that they have set aside Kshs779 million to settle the pending bills."
}