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{
    "id": 1525020,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1525020/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 957,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Funyula, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. (Dr) Ojiambo Oundo",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Yes, they will have to. I hope you will account for the interruptions so that I am given my minutes to conclude. The issue of public debt in this country has been at the forefront of discussions for long. The truth of the matter is that public debt in this country is deliberately understated. That is the truth of the matter. If you go to any office and ask to be given a schedule or a register of public debt, nobody will be knowing it. I sit in the Public Accounts Committee and some of the things that come up will shock you. I am trying to drive this point so that probably, on this document we can have a paradigm shift on how to develop to make it a document that can guide discussions in this House. In the current 2025/2026 Financial Year, the deficit is about Ksh831 billion. Again, how would you have a deficit which is almost a third of our budget? What kind of budget is this? Domestic borrowing will be about Ksh540 billion while external borrowing will be Ksh290 billion. Yet again, when you look at this, they are not so sure that they are going to borrow that money because many a times they have failed to achieve that balance and have ended up borrowing domestically. As we talk about this, we are forgetting the issue of pending bills. It is extremely unfair and undeserving to the people of Kenya to fail to account for pending bills as part of public debt. It is a public debt, yet the Strategy Paper here has no mention at all about pending bills. Are we being sincere and truthful to the people of Kenya? We are not. This Kenya Kwanza Government is not being truthful. We could liquidate the debt we have using our own resources. We hold Harambee to raise funds to do irrelevant things but we cannot do the same to meet our development needs. Are we sincere to the people of Kenya, or is it just a rip-off to make sure that the people of Kenya remain in abject poverty with no development at all? With those few remarks, I support because it is required by the law, but with reservations."
}