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{
    "id": 1545128,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1545128/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 178,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. (Dr) Oburu",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 194,
        "legal_name": "Oburu Ngona Odinga",
        "slug": "oburu-odinga"
    },
    "content": "any loan which does not contain a 35 per cent grant within it, was not touched by our Government. I do not know whether this policy is still there or not. However, it was one of the things which was making it difficult for many people who just wanted to make quick money to be running for the government. The other reason is that it makes it more difficult to negotiate cheaper loans in the long term with a longer grace period of negotiations. However, some of these people, the multilateral institutions that give cheap loans, are very sensitive. There are a lot of projects in our country which have stalled, not for any other reason, but because of activism. Sometimes, there is a lot of activism. If there is an issue coming out that the people have not been properly consulted on some issues or even the issues of what you call aesthetics--- For instance somebody can claim that the project being implemented is on his land where he buried his grandfather and has such a great attachment to his grandfather. Therefore, the project is interfering with the enjoyment of that right to have his grandfather's grave. That alone is enough to stop a project. It takes more than a year to renegotiate and get that project back. I can give you an example. In the Sondu Miriu project, there was some activism. Some people wanted their voices to be heard. They raised it when the project was already on. The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) funders who were funding that project in Japan took that matter to the Japanese Parliament and said that the locals are complaining about the land. They have some attachment to this and they were not properly consulted. It took more than a year to renegotiate for them to come back. That happens with World Bank projects. I hope that some of these issues which sometimes occur are well taken care of by the implementers of these projects in our country, so that we do not get such delays in implementation. When you get delays in implementation, interest keeps on accumulating. Even for that period when the project is stopped, the interest will continue to accumulate and the Kenyan taxpayers will pay heavily for such incompetence. We must look for alternative ways of development. We cannot concentrate on one way, which is just loans and raising taxes. We can raise taxes, we can get loans, but it might not be enough. There is a lot of money in private hands. We need to tap that money in private hands and use it for the development of our country. It is being done in America. If you go there, you find big highways. They are built by the private sector. They developed systems of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) for a long time. It took Kenya a very long time to develop policies which were acceptable to the private sector to start utilizing the PPP principle. It started here just about 10 or so years ago. This is an area which I would advise our people to use effectively as opposed to negotiating to raise our debt levels too high. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) in infrastructure of roads, water, electricity and energy, generally, is something which is very handy, particularly in developing countries such as India. India has effectively used the PPPs and we should take that example. In Kenya, there was one which was not very transparent. Sen. Onyonka took the lead here in fighting for the rights of Kenyans to know what was happening because it was not all that transparent. Nevertheless, that is a lesson to us. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."
}