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{
    "id": 1525035,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1525035/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 972,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kilifi North, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Owen Baya",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Yes, 2036. So, we dig a new hole to cover an existing hole. We then dig a bigger hole to cover an even deeper hole. We have many incomplete projects in this country that we cannot claim proprietorship of yet we have borrowed. According to a Citizen TV news broadcast aired yesterday, the country has borrowed Ksh6 billion. The project was halfway done; it was never completed. To complete it, we have to borrow again. So, the cost of the project increases by up to about 30 per cent because of the delay. We have to borrow so as to complete a project that should have been completed three years earlier. What does that mean? It means that we cannot manage our debt because of delay on projects or because of being ambitious on certain projects. Therefore, managing Kenya's debt will be a challenge. Many projects that were started all over the country during the previous regimes have been abandoned. They are too many. The Government is now looking for money to complete them. The final cost of a stalled project is usually different from the cost of the project when its execution started three to five years earlier. It means that the Government incurs more costs. A project that was initially supposed to be completed in one year at a cost of Ksh6 billion ends up costing Ksh12 billion three years later – double the initial cost. Therefore, we must start projects that we can complete. Otherwise, we will continue to borrow more to complete projects that have stalled. The third thing is that we borrow from commercial banks, like the Exim Bank and others, instead of taking multilateral or bilateral loans. We have been hit very hard by commercial loans. Multilateral and bilateral loans are cheaper. That is what we should be going for. However, people in Government have preferred to go for commercial loans despite the fact that they are very expensive. The longer the repayment period, the more the interest they accrue and they become very difficult to manage. I do not know when we will get hold of this problem. Lastly, in the previous regime, there were institutions that were used to borrow money. You find a parastatal with a Ksh100 million debt that was incurred on their behalf yet they do not know how and why the money was borrowed, and the money never got to them. How shall we manage such a situation? Therefore, as we consolidate all these things, as Parliament, we need to put our foot down and say that every coin that is borrowed must be sanctioned by this House. If this House starts sanctioning the loans we are going to borrow, we will get hold of our loan portfolios and manage the debt of this country. Thank you, Hon. Temporary Speaker."
}