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{
    "id": 1119254,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1119254/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 331,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Mutula Kilonzo Jnr.",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13156,
        "legal_name": "Mutula Kilonzo Jnr",
        "slug": "mutula-kilonzo-jnr"
    },
    "content": "The National Treasury has not actually begun discussing the retirement of any expensive debt and that is a very serious issues. The issue is even more serious when 64 per cent of our collections are going to external lenders. As I have said before, on the Floor of this House, our sovereignty as a country is at risk. If we cannot pay debt, the debtors, just like any Shylock, will come for a pound of flesh. The question is, what will be the pound of flesh? I have insisted that we should get disclosures of our public debts in terms of some of the loans that we have entered into. The National Treasury was good enough to give us the figures on the borrowing of the SGR through the Standing Committees on Roads and Transport and Finance and Budget. The borrowing on the SGR is extremely punitive for 13 years. A period of nine years has been exhausted and we have not completed paying and there is no room for complying with the payments within the loan period. Even after the Government has issued a directive that all cargo should come on the train and even if we put all Kenyans travelling to the Coast on the train, we will still not be able to pay. The loans for the SGR Phase 1 and 2 as well as the ICD in Embakasi will be paid through a national asset. We will not be able to pay that debt because it is now at Kshs440 billion. If there is anything more serious than that debt alone, I want to be told what it is. That debt will not even be paid by my great grandchildren. That debt can only be paid if we surrender a piece of land somewhere. From my own research, there is somebody who is looking at our port in Mombasa or the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) in Nairobi. It bothers us that the increase in domestic borrowing has easily moved from 22 per cent to 36 per cent. The ordinary person like you and the rest of the Senators here are the ones who are affected by the domestic borrowing because just like Sen. Kibiru has said, the banks are making money out of public money. Banks are declaring profits out of public funds. In my little conspiracy theories, I sometimes think that this is also an avenue for pilferage; that private entities can be making money out of public funds because the Government is borrowing domestically at a very high rate yet the ordinary hustlers that Sen. (Prof.) Kindiki and others speaks to, are unable to reach these facilities. In this report, we have attached a schedule of the commitments fees. In simple terms what Sen. Kibiru said is that we are paying Kshs1.16 billion for loans that we are not utilizing. For example, you will find the following in the schedule; we are"
}