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{
    "id": 1399568,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1399568/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 272,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Thang’wa",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Reading, we will be bringing such amendments. This is because governors are the ones who are exercising conflict of interest more that anybody. If you read the law in this country, no one is a CEO of a certain government other than governors. The President is not even a CEO of the country but the governors are. They are the ones who through their CECMs executive mandates and implement budgetary allocations. The issue of governors should be here as a section by itself. Governors are the ones who are not paying pending bills, they are the ones who are convincing MCAs to pass budgets that are unrealistic, so that they can commit county monies even without having it. I am happy that the other day, the President of this Republic, President William Ruto, convened a sitting with all heads and CEOs of parastatals. He told them not to execute or commit a budget of monies that they do not have. If you do not have that amount, do not commit it. That is the way to go to fight pending bills. This is what we need to do to the Governors also because they are committing money. In the case of Kiambu County, we have had four Governors. When somebody realises that they cannot be re-elected, they commit monies to entities in the name of collecting bribes from contractors. The moment they commit money, they issue contracts and they get their bribes. Then, they are not voted for and they go home leaving the contractor asking for the next Governor to pay their pending bills. The next governor will never pay because one; you did not have proper papers, probably you did not execute or support that governor. This issue of pending bills will only end once we stop the governors from over projecting a certain percentage of their own-source revenues. That is to say I have an amendment to the Public Finance Management (PFM) Act that will be coming to this House. I am requesting Members of the Senate to support it when it comes before the counties pass their budgets. That, you cannot over project your own-source revenue for the next financial year more than 20 per cent of what you collected in the previous audited year. This is because, if you do that, you will also spend what you do not have and if you spend what you do not have, you will never ever cure the issue of pending bills. As I conclude, for you to get clarity on what I meant by this, Kiambu County has projected to collect Kshs8 billion because it is Kshs7.9 billion. So far, they have only collected Kshs1.6 billion. Half within the financial year so that means, within the next half of the financial year, they are going to collect another Kshs1.6 billion. That will be Kshs3.2 billion. If you minus Kshs3.2 billion from Kshs8 billion, that is a county that has gone short of almost Kshs5 billion yet, they have committed that amount and given contractors work worth Kshs5 billion. They have pending bills of Kshs5.7 billion so by the end of this year, I am telling you, the County Government of Kiambu will have pending bills of Kshs10 billion. For us to cure this, we have to support such kind of laws and come up with such amendments. As I support this Conflict of Interest Bill, allow me to bring some amendment when we get there. Thank you very much."
}