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{
    "id": 1266739,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1266739/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 339,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Lagdera, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Abdikadir Mohamed",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Speaker, for giving me an opportunity to contribute to this debate. As a country, we do not know how much our debt is. Every Government institution that is concerned and non-state actors have their own figures. We need to know how much our debt is. The only way we can know is to carry out a forensic audit on public debts. The other question is whether pending bills are part of public debt. We have had pending bills for the last three to five years. I am sure if such bill was incurred through a contract, it would have attracted some interest. We should, therefore, ask ourselves if pending bills are part of the public debt. We need to scrutinise and conduct a forensic audit on our public debt so that we know exactly how much our debt is. The other issue is that we have loans that we cannot link to any projects. I think the Auditor-General is doing something about that, but as an institution, we should be told who borrowed the loans. What were they borrowed for? When were they borrowed? We need to know. The other issue is that we have a significant debt of about Ksh1.1 trillion which is undisbursed. Undisbursed loans are still part of our debt. We are already servicing some of them while for others, we have paid some fees called commitment fees of about Ksh600 million. However, the money is still somewhere. It has not been given to us. We are not using it, but it is also part of our public debt. I think the Ministry of National Treasury and Economic Planning should tell us where this money is and why it has not been disbursed. Once it is committed, it is our money. A sum of Ksh1.1 trillion is a lot of money that could have solved a lot of problems for us. The only way we can get out of this economic quagmire is to have more revenue. The only way we can raise more revenue is to tax Kenyans, which is very painful. The options are to either take loans or raise revenue through taxation. Which option is better? Loans are worse because you pay them back with interest. Currently, 75 per cent of the interest we are paying on loans is for domestic loans, which is the easiest money that the Government can get. Whenever the Government wants to raise money, it issues bonds. We should look into our borrowing as a country. We should not borrow money and do nothing with it. We may have a challenge when it comes to raising money, but if we always go for loans and incur debts, it will be a problem for us."
}