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"id": 196324,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/196324/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Prof. Olweny",
"speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Education",
"speaker": {
"id": 122,
"legal_name": "Patrick Ayiecho Olweny",
"slug": "patrick-olweny"
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"content": " Thank you, Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, for giving me an opportunity to support the Motion. These two Reports that are on the Floor today are actually more than five years old and they are here for us to discuss. I am wondering what purpose they are serving because if at all there were problems reported in these Reports, some of the people who committed these crimes are out of the service. They have retired. 576 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES April 22, 2008 There is very little we can do to them today. So, the PAC Reports should be brought here in good time. We should not have a difference of more than a year for PAC Reports to be brought here for us to discuss them. For example, today we would be talking about the PAC Reports of last year. If at all they are that late, they should be for two years ago. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, the Reports reflect heavily on the inefficiency of our Government, the Public Service, corruption and looting of public funds. May God help in these two Reports. Of course, the previous parliaments have also been debating such Reports. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, the worst one is the loss of public money through contractors. A lot of money has been lost. This happens year in, year out, in this country. We know the public officers who are involved and who collude with the contractors, so that they are paid irregularly. There is overpayment and delay in payment, so that we have huge variations. A good example is contained in this Report of 2000/2001. There is a road that was supposed to be constructed between Kisii and Chemosit. Originally in 1986, this road was supposed to cost only about Kshs146 million. By the time it was about to be finished in 2004, it had cost this country Kshs1.8 billion. Look at that variation. It is just because at some point the contractors did not perform. The civil servants who were supposed to pay the contractors did not pay. The contractors pulled out. This Kshs1.8 billion is what I need in my constituency, so as to revive Miwani Sugar Company, so that it is not given out to the dogs at Kshs28 million. If this happened, this Report is brought to us, we talk about it and then the copies are kept in the library. That is the end of the story. What good is this Parliament doing to safeguard the country? We should find a way of making sure that those contractors are properly punished. The officers in the Ministry of Roads or wherever they are, should be made answerable for whatever they do to this country and for making it lose a lot of money. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, this Report, to some extent, details how much land the Government lost, which was later bought again by the same Government. A lot of public land during the Moi regime was given out to several individuals at no cost. Those people who got that land sold it very expensively to the private sector. However, most of it was sold back to Government organisations like the National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF). The NHIF bought a lot of land from individuals in this country. Those individuals got that land for free from the Government. They got it from the President and the following day, they would sell it to the National Social Security Fund (NSSF) at exorbitant prices. When the Government was giving out that land, did it not know that the NHIF, Government schools and research institutions would need land? Many research institutions lost a lot of land to individuals who were well placed in the Government. In my constituency, I know of many schools which until today have insufficient land. I even had to tell someone who \"grabbed\" public land to move out of it. Good enough, that was one of the cases that were cited in the Ndung'u Report. It is my wish that the Ndung'u Report be implemented so that people who have been mentioned adversely can return public land. If they have sold the land, they should find a way of compensating the Government or the public institutions whose land they \"grabbed\". Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, some people who looted land ended up being politicians and sold the land very expensively. They got enough money to campaign and became very senior politicians in this country. Some of them became Ministers. They have become untouchable because they are in this House again. They are the ones who are supposed to implement this Report. They are the ones who are making decisions. I suggest that this country comes up with a periodical publication where the names of crooks who have made the Government lose money are published. That periodical should be distributed free of charge to the citizens of this country so that people who live with you in the same village can know that you stole public money. Some of these guys are the ones you see bragging. They have a lot of money. That is my suggestion. April 22, 2008 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 577 Sometime back, during the Ninth Parliament, a good number of procurement officers were sacked. Although some of them were innocent, they were sacked to give room to others who are still making the Government lose money today. If you look at the money mentioned in these two Reports and in other previous reports and others which are coming, they reflect the same thing; the Government losing money through procurement and irregular payments. There is a good example here of a case concerning pencils. The Government lost millions of shillings when pencils were procured by one of its Ministries. The cost of a pencil was supposed to be Kshs3. However, the price at which the pencils were bought was at Kshs7 a piece. There were thousands and thousands of pencils purchased. If the officer who made the Government lose money in that manner is known and he is still sitting in a public office, then is this country serious? Are we really serious? The PAC wrote a Report, it has been brought here and it will be taken to the library. Some of us will not even take a copy of the Report with us. We will leave the copies here. We will forget about them and that is the end of the story. The same officers, year in, year out, do the same thing. What is the need of spending money writing reports which do not help the Government to prosecute those who were involved in looting this country? Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, the amount of money that has been lost, in whatever way, could have made the various sectors of this Government grow stronger. For example, the Ministry of Agriculture. The extension wing of the Ministry of Agriculture collapsed. They do not do much. If you look at the Report, you will see that they spent millions of money in buying bicycles and motorcycles. I do not know whether they were kept in Kilimo House or if they were used anywhere. However, in my constituency, I have not seen an officer of the Ministry of Agriculture riding on a motorcycle or a bicycle. So, what was that money used for? They claim that they bought several motorcycles and bicycles. The money lost could be used by the Government to hire more Extension Officers to start working instead of buying bicycles. We do not have enough of these officers in this country. Why buy bicycles and there is no one who will ride them? Why buy motor cycles and yet we do not have enough personnel who will use them to visit farmers? How do we handle this situation? I have suggested that we have a periodical so that some of these people are known by Kenyans. We should give Kenyans their names after every one month, six months or one year so that they are blacklisted, sacked, prosecuted and not allowed to contest any elective posts in this country because that is how they escape the issues after they have looted. That is where they escape to. After they have looted funds, some of them end up being councillors and some end up in this House. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, the misuse of Government funds does not lie with the public service only. In this country, when we talk of corruption we just have the Civil Service in mind. We have in mind, the senior officers of the Government. We have in mind the Ministers. What about the private sector? Very few people refer to the private sector when it comes to corruption. For example, in my constituency, there is Miwani Sugar Mill. On 24th, December last year, when everybody was out campaigning and looking for votes--- The whole country was preparing to vote, yet someone claimed to have gone to court, got a judgement and order for Miwani Sugar Mill to be auctioned. That was on the 24th, December last year! It was, indeed, auctioned on the 24th. So, someone decides to give a judgement in court and auctioning is done the same day. The Judiciary was involved and it is part of the public service. However, the people who were involved in this should be brought to book. This was a fraud. A company that was worth Kshs3 billion was sold out for peanuts. There is a claim that it was sold out. I think people who are doing their own businesses but are corrupt must also be brought to book. I know a few have been brought to book. We have a few cases that have been mentioned here and there. Whenever there is corruption in this country, the private sector and the Government are involved. Some time back, a few people were kicked out of their jobs. When the civil servants are kicked out of their jobs, what happens to the people in the private sector who colluded with them? 578 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES April 22, 2008 At the Kenya Sugar Board (KSB), the Chief Executive Officer was suspended from his office. This was in November last year. That young man was very strict. He was suspended from his work for no good reason. Kumbe these people were preparing to auction Miwani Sugar Mill irregularly. He could not have allowed them to do that. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, my plea to the Minister for Agriculture is to let that young man go back to his work. The information we have is that he blocked some people, who wanted to acquire Miwani Sugar Mill irregularly. I think these people colluded with his employer, and agreed that this young man must go so as to give them way. He was kicked out in November and on 24th December, Miwani Sugar Mill was gone. So, my plea to the Minister for Agriculture is, let the Chief Executive Officer of the KSB go back to his job, because he committed no crime. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, if all the monies that have been lost through mega corruption, irregular payments and payments to contractors who did not deserve to be paid could be saved, I think most of our problems could be solved. We would find it easy to subsidise the agricultural sector. Today every farmer is crying because a bag of fertiliser is going at Kshs4,000. The actual price of that bag, without someone over-blowing its price, is Kshs2,200. The actual price of a bag of fertiliser moved recently from Kshs1,500 to around Kshs2,200, and not Kshs4,000! If the money we are throwing was to be given to the National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPD), or some other parastatal, to import fertilisers, farmers would have fertiliser at a cheaper price in this country. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, with those few comments I beg to support."
}