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{
    "id": 143138,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/143138/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 392,
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    "speaker_name": "",
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would like to briefly mention something about specific issues that we identified in a few Ministries. In the Ministry of Finance, there was one glaring issue. This was the issue of Statement of Outstanding loans. Hon. Members, you can confirm this under paragraphs 39 to 48. The Consolidated Statement of Outstanding loans as at 30th June, 2006, reflected loans totaling to Kshs73.8 billion, out of which an amount of Kshs10.5 billion had been repaid, leaving a balance of around Kshs63.3 billion outstanding against loans lent to various organizations through 11 Ministries. My Committee was appalled by the poor state of records pertaining to the loans portfolio in the Ministry, despite the available information technology capable of tracking this information even on a daily basis. We are very concerned about this because some of the loans given to parastatals were not utilized for intended purposes and loss of relevant loan documents could have been a ploy to conceal deliberately, for mismanaged funds. The Committee also observed that currently, it is not possible for the Accounting Officer to know with absolute certainty the status of loans in his docket and their repayment schedules, leaving plenty of room for possible manipulation and distortion of figures. The Committee recommends that the Accounting Officer should set up a special monitoring team to enforce follow up and give regular updates on the national loan portfolio. The Committee further recommends that since the Accounting Officer has made no serious effort to resolve this long outstanding issues, strict deadlines should be set for him and the chief executive officers of the concerned parastatals to streamline and clean up the issues bogging down their operations. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, at the Ministry of Planning, National Development and Vision 2030, we found serious cases of under-expenditure and under- collection of Appropriations-in-Aid (A-in-A). That is contained in Paragraph 349. The Development Appropriation Account for Vote D.06 for the year ended 30 June 2006 reflects gross under-expenditure of Kshs.508,395,235.10 or approximately 33.36% of the approved provision of Kshs.1,524,285,572.00 and deficiency in Appropriations-in-Aid (A-in-A) of Kshs.128 million. As earlier stated, the Ministry seems to have budgeted for funds it could not utilize, hence denying other Ministries the use of scarce national resources. The Committee, while noting the measures taken to forestall the perennial problem of under-expenditure, recommends that the accounting officer in liaison with the Permanent Secretary at the Treasury should put proper systems in place to address the issue of absorption capacity in the utilization of funds and, especially, utilization of donor funds. The Committee further recommends that the accounting officer must ensure that only projects whose formalities are sure to be completed are included in the Budget. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, with your permission, before I go to the third Ministry, allow me to request the people of Kimilili to allow the hon. Member for Kimilili to pour for me a glass of water."
}