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{
    "id": 1213829,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1213829/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 200,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Wajir East, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Aden Mohammed",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Speaker for giving me this opportunity. We have heard a lot of statements in this country. A few days ago, our Cabinet Secretary in charge of the National Treasury said that this country is broke. One of the reasons statements like that are made is because of the stock of public debt. Although we are discussing the Consolidated Fund Service (CFS), it is important to note that public debt is the first charge on the Consolidated Fund. That is why we keep on talking about public debt in addition to the CFS. Hon. Temporary Speaker, my Chair and the Vice-Chairperson have ably moved this Motion, but I would like to stress on a few things. One way of hiding the extent of debt from the Kenyan public is the use of accrual or cash accounting. You have heard that our undisbursed loans are up to Ksh1.17 trillion. This is not information that the Kenyan public is privy to. The reason is because we use cash accounting and once the loans are undisbursed, they are not shown as loans that we have taken. The import of hiding that big figure of Ksh1.l7 trillion is that it increases our stock of debt which is reported to be at Ksh9.15 trillion. You will note that every agency has a different figure. The Controller of Budget said that our stock of debt is at Ksh9.17 trillion while the National Treasury says that it is at Ksh9.15 trillion. Be that as it may, if you add the stock of debt and the undisbursed loans which we pay commitment fees for of Ksh1.17 trillion - the Vice-Chairperson talked about this - then we are above the statutory debt limit of Ksh10 trillion. This is a House where the people’s representatives are yet the Executive has breached the Ksh10 trillion mark and this is the first time a report like this is coming to Parliament. It is unfortunate that we have very few Members of Parliament listening to this very important Report from the Committee. We have been told about the effect of the foreign exchange fluctuations on our stock of national debt. If you note, even real estate developers are hedging and using US dollars to sell their houses. You cannot rent a house in some places in Nairobi unless you use US dollars. We have brilliant minds both in the National Treasury and at the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK). Why are we not able to hedge our loans? Why we leave the vagaries of foreign exchange fluctuations to hurt Kenyan taxpayers boggles my mind. I do not know why we use that and why we are not able to hedge. Part of the recommendations of this Report is that hedging must be used so that we protect the taxpayers. The other recommendation of this Report is that we have to amend the Public Finance Management (PFM) Act so as to ring-fence the counterpart funding. Hon. Temporary Speaker, can I have one more minute?"
}