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{
    "id": 1566126,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1566126/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 176,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Cherarkey",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "He has the advantage of sitting in the Committee of Finance and Budget as a Member. As we go for mediation, our bare minimum is to ensure that Kshs3.5 billion is ring-fenced for payment of gratuity and hiring on permanent and pensionable of UHC staff. I am happy even during the debate on permanent and pensionable, we did push for Kshs 6,000 for Junior Secondary Schools (JSS). I am coming up with a proposal to amend the Public Service Commission (PSC) Act; that all public service commission interns who intern with Government must be transited to permanent and pensionable terms after six months. This will ensure that we retrain the quality of training of those staff and we do not pay stipend. As we talk, even as the UHC staff demonstrate, it is sad because in our hospitals, there are no services, yet we have staff who have already been trained. I want to advise the CoG and the Ministry of Health, let us not lose the UHC staff because they are already trained, they have worked and they have experience. The least we could do as a country is to appreciate the heroes and heroines of the COVID-19 pandemic. You remember, soldiers could not come out of the barracks because no one knew how to handle COVID-19 in this country. Therefore, we must look at the issues of the UHC staff and Community Health Volunteers (CHVs). I have seen the reasoning of allocating the public debt, which is approaching Kshs11 trillion. I want to call upon and challenge the Committee on Finance and Budget of the National Assembly and the Senate and His Excellency the President, to do an audit of the public debt to help us know, in this Kshs11 trillion, who do we owe and who owes us. It cannot be that the country pays a public debt and an audit has never been done about the Kshs11 trillion. One of the things that Parliament can do, is to demand an audit of the entire public debt that the country is paying. We have to tax Kenyans and borrow, so that we can pay debt, because in the past regime, there was reckless spending and abandonment on borrowing. We cannot account for that money through the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) or the infrastructure roads. We must demand for an audit of the public debt in this country of Kshs11 trillion. It is very disappointing that most of the businessmen in Meru, Nandi, Kilifi, Narok, Migori, Garissa and Isiolo, are suffering because of lack of payment of pending bills. It cannot be that the Controller of Budget (CoB) is releasing money, yet we have pending bills of Kshs185.446 billion. You are killing our small business. I remember Sen. Gicheru was coming up with a Bill on Start-Ups. How will we support the small businesses in our villages and in our counties if we do not pay pending bills? If you can recall Sen. Ledama's Motion, we had resolved as a House that pending bills must be paid. In the last session, the National Treasury issued a circular that counties must give an undertaking of payment of pending bills. Nonetheless, it is sad that pending bills as of today amount to Kshs185.46 billion, with Nairobi leading with over Kshs100 billion. We must be told where the money is going to. When you go to the Controller of Budget, the requisitions have been met. When you come to the pending bills, we have a problem called voiding of payments whereby 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."
}