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{
    "id": 1404950,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1404950/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 326,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. (Dr.) Oburu",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 194,
        "legal_name": "Oburu Ngona Odinga",
        "slug": "oburu-odinga"
    },
    "content": "Kavindu. This is on the failure of the State universities to remit statutory deductions from their employees. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, this is a very serious problem and it is not only with the universities, but also many State corporations that they do not remit those deductions they make from their workers. This affects the workers not only at the time of their retirement, but even while still in employment. If you take an example of the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF), people are insured with their families and their monies are deducted every month from their salaries. However, when they go to dispensaries, health centers or hospitals to seek treatment, they are denied treatment because they are not up to date in their contributions. This affects the livelihood and many people even die because you do not get treated. Sometimes, you do not have any other money to pay for the treatment and the only way is to go to heaven. There is also the other issue of people being detained in hospitals because of a lack of money to pay, yet money is being held by the employers. Counties do it. They always find that the easiest money to use are statutory deductions because they are deducted. There is nobody immediately demanding that they remit these monies to the institutions concerned. Finally, if it is pensions, you might not be aware that your university has been deducting pensions from your salary every month, which you see glaringly. However, you might also not be aware that these same people are not remitting the same to the institutions where that money is supposed to go. Sometimes they take it with good intentions that they will refund it when their monies come because sometimes remittances from the Government delays, particularly for universities. However, money is sometimes sweet and the needs are very many. When they eventually get their allocations from the Ministries, they find that they cannot remit it to those institutions because nobody has demanded from them. Therefore, they continue to spend these monies, which turn into what is called the pending bills. This thing called pending bills is a very big monster. It is something that has made businesses collapse, sent people bankrupt and made many people commit suicide because they do not have any other ways of paying their debts when they have contributed to the Government and continue with their normal businesses. We must find a way of eliminating pending bills from the Government. There should be some measures of punishment for those organisations that deliberately dip their hands into statutory deductions that they have made from the workers. This is from the workers' sweat. These people have to sweat to earn, yet when deductions are being made, the organisations even use it sometimes on luxurious things. These people are completely unaware that these deductions are not being put to proper use where the monies are supposed to be put. I stand to very strongly support the statement sought by Sen. Kavindu. I hope the committee to which it has been referred will do thorough investigations and report back their findings on these statutory deductions to this House. Thank you."
}