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"speaker_name": "Prof. Anyang'-Nyong'o",
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"legal_name": "Peter Anyang' Nyong'o",
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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I stand to contribute to the Committee of Ways and Means, and to make a few points, mainly regarding Government revenue and Government expenditure. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, one of the sources of Government revenue is, of course, taxation. We know in this country that when the Minister reads his Budget, he will talk about Income Tax, or the various sources of taxes such as Excise Duty and so on. We know that the port of Mombasa is, perhaps, the biggest source of revenue for the Government, or ought to be the biggest source of revenue. If there is no proper management of the port, if there is no proper accountability at the port, if there are no proper systems of revenue collection at the port, you expect a lot of \"haemorrhage\" to occur in terms of revenue coming in to Government. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, yesterday, as I was watching KTN, there was an extremely sad news of some commodities which came to the country more than ten year ago, I think in 1992, in a container and they are still lying at the Kenya Railways, because nobody has claimed them, or those trying to claim those goods cannot satisfy the Kenya Railways Corporation that they are the rightful owners. It is said that inside that container, whatever you call it, lies tea machinery worth Kshs70 million. I think this must have been as a result of reading the bills of landing that came with the commodities. We understand that wherever those commodities were destined to, whether they were coming into Kenya or heading to Rwanda, somebody has missed the use of this machinery for almost two decades. At the same time, that machinery is occupying useful space at the Kenya Railways Corporation (KRC), for which it should be charged demurrage. But that is not happening. The case is that something must have gone wrong at the Port of Mombasa and KRC, for the right documentation not to be done or for the right person not to be contacted to come and claim the goods. That is just one incident. How many such incidents do we have in this country, where revenue is being lost and commodities are not being used as a result of that inefficiency and, perhaps, corruption? In that regard, we know that there is an internal container depot in Kisumu, which ought to be used for transiting goods to markets in western Kenya, or for onward transit to countries like Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and so on. I would like to remind the Government that the internal container depot in Kisumu is grossly under-utilised. I would be surprised if the capacity utilisation of the internal container depot in Kisumu has even reached 30 per cent per annum, ever since it was established. Indeed, that facility is extremely expensive. It can be used very effectively to earn revenue for this country but, somehow, it is not being used to earn revenue for this country. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, if I take the rail and harbour system all the way from Mombasa to Busia, and with the introduction of the Rift Valley Railways Corporation (RVRC), which is supposedly a private sector initiative, and understanding that RVRC is only functioning at 47 per cent capacity utilisation, you can understand the opportunity cost that the Government is 2072 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES June 27, 2007 going through, having assumed that the concesioning of the railways was going to produce efficiency. But, in actual fact, it has caused inefficiency. These are some of the issues that the Minister should have addressed in his Budget Speech. He should have introduced measures to tighten revenue generation and introduce efficiency in revenue generation, rather than concentrate too much in painting a rosy picture about how the Government is performing, but not telling the nation exactly what problems the Government is going through, so that this Parliament can help it become efficient in revenue collection. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, going back to the Port of Mombasa, it has been said and, indeed, there is evidence, that after the first two years of the NARC Government, there was a little bit of vigilance. Since the end of the year 2005, the Port of Mombasa has gone back to its original inefficiency and corruption. Not too long ago, a whole ship-load of small arms and grenades were imported through the Port of Mombasa. Under normal circumstances, such arms should be transported to Nairobi or wherever they are destined in Kenya through the railways, because of security reasons. We have it on record that those arms were transported by road, something which created a lot of insecurity in Kenya. No wonder, there are now reports that"
}