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{
    "id": 1266748,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1266748/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 348,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Dagoretti South, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. John Kiarie",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Hon. Temporary Speaker, I thank you for giving me this opportunity. I have taken time to internalise this very important Report. I commend the Committee and the Chairman. As a House, we can now see the wisdom of the 12th Parliament in establishing the Public Debt and Privatisation Committee. This being their first Report, the Committee is already doing a brilliant job. Public debt is a real issue in this country. It is so real an issue that for the first time in Kenya’s history, repayment of international obligations surpasses the Ksh1 trillion mark. The Ksh1 trillion mark has become an alarm bell that this country must wake up to. International obligations and debts are things that you have very little control over. You do not have control over the fluctuation of international currencies. You do not have control over the rules and conditions that are set by lenders. That is why this House, through this Committee, must be on top of this country’s borrowing. We have experienced a number of calamities in the past. One such calamity is the country going for extremely expensive debts. Expensive debts are at times a sign of corruption, because affordable debts are available. Because people want to make personal benefits out of what they borrow for the country, they choose to go for extremely expensive debts that are impossible to pay. I support this Report in its entirety. One thing in it that excites me is the fact that the Committee recommends that we get quarterly reports on the debt of the country. I demand that during every budget cycle, this House gets the right debt register of the country. When we were dealing with the issue of raising the debt ceiling, this House was at a loss to tell the country how much we owe our creditors. This House has not been furnished with reports on how the country borrows, how our loan registers look and the nature of debts we have taken in terms of foreign and domestic debt and concessional and conditional debts. The fact that this Committee recommends that the National Treasury reports to this House is one of the reasons I support the Report. 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."
}