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"id": 188958,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/188958/?format=api",
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Michuki",
"speaker_title": "The Minister for Environment and Mineral Resources",
"speaker": {
"id": 183,
"legal_name": "John Njoroge Michuki",
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"content": " Mr. Speaker, Sir, my dear friend there, hon. Okemo, wants an explanation about the guarantees and other things; what he describes as technical. It is important, as I said, to understand the background of this whole episode with very many acts in it. Those were loans which were generally given, in some cases, to people who, other than collecting fares from a taxi, have never, never attempted a venture involving such monies as they had been given! Yet, they were given. They were given those loans by an order of the people who were then in the Government. So, Mr. Speaker, Sir, having given instructions that loans be extended, whether it was to Nzoia, Mumias or whoever, it was being done with the hope that those companies and individuals will be able to repay them. So, the question of guarantees at that time did not come into being, other than the letter that the Minister had written, and many others that were written thereafter! They were letters of comfort which did not amount to a guarantee and, yet, they were acceptable to the bank itself! Mr. Speaker, Sir, there is the issue of whether restructuring was being done together with privatisation. The policy of privatisation is accepted in this country. The methods which should have been followed have been accepted in certain ways, and others have not. In fact, it is right now that what you might call the Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) policies are being developed. But you have a bank which, even though it was in bad shape, had hundreds or thousands of customers! You could not begin discussing a bank like that without, actually, arranging to wind it up in the same process. That is because people keep money in a bank in which they have faith. To debate a bank through a Sessional Paper is like saying: \"Close the bank and let everybody go home!\" That is what you would be saying! So, in its own wisdom, the Government had to rescue that bank in the best way it could do. 1944 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES July 17, 2008 Was it prudent? If we were to listen to what Dr. Khalwale said, would it have been prudent to come out here and start debating a bank in a Sessional Paper and expect that, at the end of the debate, we shall have a bank? I do not think so!"
}