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{
    "id": 1173426,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1173426/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 171,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kikuyu, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Kimani Ichung’wah",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1835,
        "legal_name": "Anthony Kimani Ichung'Wah",
        "slug": "anthony-kimani-ichungwah"
    },
    "content": "Hon. Kamket has just told you that initially they had brought us a percentage. If you look at the percentage they are giving us now, as much as it is on the net present value (NPV) terms of our GDP, at 55 percent, however much you try to cook the GDP on the NPV terms, we will still be below the Kshs9 trillion debt that we have today. Therefore, this slight or huge variation to Kshs10 trillion will be a burden to the Kenyan people. More importantly, it is outside what this House has approved in our Medium-Term Debt Strategy Paper. I have chaired the Budget and Appropriations Committee, and so I speak from a point of knowledge. We demanded from the National Treasury that every year, before you tell us how much you are borrowing, earmark for us the specific projects that you intend to utilise that public debt on. There have been resolutions in this House to that effect. Today we are increasing our debt to Kshs10 trillion and we cannot earmark projects where this money will go into. Even the Appropriations Bill we will be discussing today, if you look at the Estimates that are there, there is nothing specific on what projects will be financed using public debt. In the course of today, as I look at the Order Paper, we are bound to discuss the Supplementary Estimates II. I see the Chairman of the Budget and Appropriations Committee winking at me because he knows I know what I am talking about. The reason we are doing Supplementary Estimates II is because we spend out of the budget. I take note of what the Leader of Majority Party was saying that we are spending in very good things that are for the benefit of the country. Know that when you spend on things that are out of the budget cycle, you will end up borrowing! The Cabinet Secretary in charge of the National Treasury has a very high aptitude, but he cannot stand up to his President and tell him that sprucing up public parks in a country when people are dying out of hunger is not a priority! Budgeting is about priorities. How much money have we spent sprucing up Uhuru Park? How much money are we spending to spruce up Uhuru Gardens? I do not know why they are all called Uhuru. In fact, I would dare propose that one of these fine days we should rename Uhuru Gardens to Freedom Gardens. I am not saying this because I have anything against somebody, but I have a problem when we spend money on non-priority areas and more so use public debts to do it. His Excellency the President must shy away from telling the people of Kenya things that are not true on national holidays. He claimed that the Nairobi Expressway has not used a coin of our taxpayers’ money. I know, for a fact, that the Nairobi Expressway has gobbled not less than Kshs20 billions of taxpayers’ money! It is, therefore, wrong for the President to purport that the Expressway, which Kenyans are now paying for and paying to companies that we cannot tell who owns, has not used a coin of our taxpayers’ money. Look at the CR12 of the company that is managing the Expressway. It is a company registered in Dubai as a single shareholder. I have seen it! The Chinese on that CR12 are mere proxies. These are issues that if we, as a Parliament, are shy of discussing and sit here today and approve a debt ceiling of Kshs10 trillion, then we will be as good as killing Kenyans with a burden they cannot bear. It is okay to borrow and I have said it before. I heard the Leader of Majority Party saying if you have the capacity to take up a mortgage of Kshs5 million and you are able to pay, well, go ahead. Today this, country is not able to repay its own debt. Our Consolidated Funds Services (CFS) in the National Treasury will tell you that this January, they had to borrow from the domestic market to finance our public debt. Indeed, that is a danger that we are living in. We are dealing with a regime with people who have no aptitude to think about the ordinary Kenyan who is suffering. It is a burden that we are laying on the Kenyan people. How I wish we were more innovative in terms of expanding our tax base by simply expanding our bottom. I do not know why they get jittery when we talk about bottom-up. Bottom-up simply means that we expand our tax The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}