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{
    "id": 1222129,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1222129/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 197,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kitui Central, WDM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. (Dr) Makali Mulu",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you very much, Hon. Deputy Speaker. I rise to second this important Motion and thank my Chairman for work well done. As a Committee, we have listed quite a number of recommendations which this House has to consider. Since matters public debt is a matter of national interest, I want to urge the House to take these recommendations very seriously. I want to unpack four of them because of time. I want to start with the matter of undisbursed loans. Hon. Members, I plead with you to listen to these figures so that you can know the kind of problem we are talking about. As I second this Motion, you will realise that this country today has a total of Ksh1.175 trillion in undisbursed loans, where we have signed to use as a country and because we are not using them, we are forced as a country to pay what we call a commitment fee. For the first half of this year, this country paid Ksh680 million in form of commitment fee. This is money which would have gone to assist this country to do more roads and hospitals. So, we are saying that the people who go to negotiate for these loans and those who sign for those loans on behalf of Kenyans must do their work seriously. That is because they are committing the country and we are not ready to use the loans. The second matter is the issue of non-performing loans. This country has a lot of non- performing loans; loans which have been taken; loans which have been guaranteed by the Government and since the parastatals are not able to pay them, the national Government, through the Consolidated Fund, is forced to pay. I want to just take two of them as examples and explain to the Members. The Kenya Airways has a loan of Ksh88.3 billion, and they have defaulted on the payment of that loan. That means that the national Government will now have to pay for that loan. If you look at our current budget, their proposal is to spend about Ksh24 billion in paying for that loan as well as paying for interest. When you look at Kenya Power (KP), it has a loan of about Ksh9.9 billion, which has also not been paid. For the Kenya Airways, the company is not able to pay because of mismanagement. But for KP, they say they are not even aware of this loan. Imagine a loan was taken on behalf of KP, it was spent and now it has not been paid. And when you talk to KP, they say that they are not even aware of that loan. So, you see the kind of problems we are talking about in terms of matters of public debt. The third item I want to speak about is the issue of the Euro Bond. In the year 2014, this country went out in the market and was able to secure a loan in form of a Euro Bond. This loan will be due for payment next year. Next year, this country will be expected to pay US$2 billion in terms of that Euro Bond. When you look at this strategy, the proposal is again to go to the market and borrow commercially to pay that loan of US$2 billion. This is really against the strategy. The strategy is saying that the way forward is to go for concessional loans. At the same time, we are seeing the same strategy proposing to borrow commercially US$2 billion to pay for the Euro Bond. 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."
}