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"id": 225819,
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Kipchumba",
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"speaker": {
"id": 313,
"legal_name": "Joseph Kipchumba Lagat",
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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we have made recommendations that there should be no queries on imprests. If you look at all the reports of PAC year in, year out, you will notice that there are a lot of imprests accruing from various officers. It is now law that you must surrender your imprest within 48 hours. But when many of those Accounting Officers are asked that question, they say that many of the officers retired before surrendering all the imprests and that they have written to them letters using their last known addresses. You will wonder, when those officers are being released from duty, what is the job of the Accounting Officers? What is the job of the management to the extent that they release officers to go on retirement and yet they have not cleared huge amounts of imprests? There are people who owe this Government millions of shillings in imprests that has not been followed. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we have cases of failure by the Government to provide counter-part funds. Every year, the Government in its Budget, is required to provide for counter-part funds in various projects. It is disheartening that while donors provide their portion of funding for the various projects, the Government has consistently failed to meet its obligation of providing counter-part funds. I think we must legislate in future that whenever we vote in monies in our estimates, that the counter-part funds must always be provided for. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we have also made recommendations that various contractors must be deregistered. Even in this Report, there are cases of roads, like the Ziwa-Kitale Road, which was constructed using quite a lot of money by TAM Construction Company. The road never lasted two years, and yet a tamarck road must be guaranteed to last at least more than ten years. Those contractors continue to be given contracts in this country. They are very many. I think 752 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES April 18, 2007 we must legislate to punish any Minister, or officer of Government, who ensures that projects are done by companies that have been blacklisted by a Committee of this House. This is a very serious matter. We continue to lose a lot of money. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the most interesting topic that I always deal with in the PAC is the issue of pending bills. Since I joined Parliament, every year, there are issues to do with pending bills, to the extent that billions of shillings have not been paid to contractors. All that this Government has done is to buy time. There have now been very many committees on pending bills called by various names. Now, the current one is called \"the Pending Bills Finalisation Committee\", on which we have no report. It continues to assume that it can finalise these pending bills issues. Some of the bills are so basic. If, indeed, a Ministry has no query on a bill and a contractor has done a job, why can he not be paid? If the contractor has not done the job, why can that issue not be dealt with there and then? We continue to provide, in our books of accounts, quite substantial amounts of money to meet pending bills owed to various contractors. It is a shame that we cannot sort out a matter that has been pending for a long time. The Government says it inherited these pending bills, but what has it done about them? It is hopeless to be a person who cannot make a decision in society. You better make a decision, get it wrong but get it right the next time. But we cannot, and should not, continue to provide in our books, year in, year out, for people who must be paid. This finalisation committee continues to incur a lot of expenses. By the end of last year, it had incurred a bill of up to Kshs80 million, all on a report that might not be acceptable to the contractors. This is because there was no contract in the first place between the contractors and the Government. So, any report that this committee comes up with will be liable to be challenged in court. Therefore, it is a waste of funds and time. I want to request the Government to look into this issue of pending bills once and for all; it should negotiate with the contractors, and a way out found in relation to bills which cannot be paid. You cannot continue to pretend that you are looking into bills which are so obvious. Some of them relate to electricity, telephone charges, construction works which were verified by various engineers and so on. It is time this Government makes a final decision. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we have cases in public expenditure where Parliamentary approval has not been given, yet various Accounting Officers continue to incur expenditure. This Parliament will be toothless if, indeed, there are Accounting Officers who continue to incur expenditure with impunity without Parliamentary approval. I think this House must rise to the occasion. There is no point in us approving funds in this House, if Accounting Officers will commit Government beyond what has been approved. I think we must, as a House, legislate. The biggest problem we have in accounting in Government today is failure to institute necessary sanctions. Accounting Officers continue to incur irregular expenditure and violate the laid down Government financial regulations with impunity. There are no rules or penalties. All you do is probably transfer an officer to another office, or do nothing at all. I think it is time that we amended and put into law our financial regulations, so that anybody who violates any financial regulation is made to pay for it. If, for example, an Accounting Officer incurs expenditure beyond what is approved by Parliament, that officer must, by law, be made to pay the unauthorised excess expenditure. You cannot continue to allow people to incur expenditure, which has never been approved and they still go scot free. I think the Departmental Committee on Finance, Planning and Trade must look into these issues if the Minister is unable to do that. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, another issue that has puzzled us is the failure by local authorities to ensure that they keep proper books of accounts. The Controller and Auditor- General can only audit books which have been prepared by accountants. If you look at the books for various local authorities, you will realise that since Independence many of them--- In fact, for the first time last year, the Controller and Auditor-General was able to audit only a few of them, yet April 18, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 753 local authorities now have become the bodies through which the Government will ensure that funds are expended. The money that is transferred to local authorities is almost equivalent to the CDF allocation. This year alone, they were given up to Kshs7 billion. It would be outrageous that huge amounts of money are not followed up with an audit, or to ensure preparation of proper books of accounts. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the biggest problem, as many local authorities will tell you, is that they do not have the necessary expertise. This country is not in short of accountants. I think it was deliberate that accountants were not posted to the local authorities, so that proper books were not prepared and, therefore, the Controller and Auditor-General was unable to audit the local authorities, hence monies were misappropriated in various local authorities. You realise that when the CDF kitty was established, people forgot about monies that are transferred to local authorities completely, and to the extent that nobody talks about it, yet those are the monies that are not accounted for. In fact, no PAC has looked at the accounts of any local authority. If we do that this year, then this will be the first time we will have done it. I, therefore, want to request that the Ministry of Finance, or the Ministry of Local Government, employs competent staff. I do not understand why a Minister should be posted to the Ministry of Local Government, be in office for five years, or whatever period, be removed or resign without ever learning that, indeed, all the monies that have been transferred to the various local authorities have not been audited or accounted for. I think this is a shame and an embarrassment to this country. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, another problem that we have regards the use of the Contingency Fund (CF). The CF is supposed to be used in unforseen cases. But, in many occasions, some of that money has been withdrawn and used for cases which were clearly within our knowledge. If, indeed, we cannot use that money for unforseen circumstances, there is no need for that Fund. That Fund was created to assist when there is famine, flooding or any other calamities that befall this country. That money is withdrawn and replenished almost immediately, or in the subsequent financial year. That money can easily be misused. It is money that is set aside in the Budget to take care of unforseen cases. So, it is very important that we become very strict on the use of the CF. If that is not done, then cases of corruption can easily crop in. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, finally, there is the issue of Government guarantees. If you look at the reports of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) since Independence, the Government has continued to guarantee loans to various parastatals and Government departments. To date, it is not known how much money the Government has guaranteed various State corporations and departments. It is embarrassing! The Government does not know how much it has guaranteed various organisations. Many of those parastatals get those guarantees and yet, they know they do not have the capacity to pay those funds. It is high time we instituted a special audit of all the money that the Government has guaranteed various organisations. We could be paying money and services were not provided. That is a case where corruption could have easily cropped in. A former Chairman of PAC, Mr. Omingo, brought a Motion that urged the Government to conduct an audit of all the money that it has guaranteed. But that Motion was shot down by this House. Nothing has been done since then. Every year, we, in PAC, ask: \"How much money has the Government guaranteed various parastatals?\" Nobody seems to know. Even the parastatal chiefs will tell you that the Investments Section of the Government should be able to give that information. If you go to them, they have no clue! They say the various parastatals should know. There are cases where the Government even paid for a loan before its maturity date. All we are told is that the donors will give the money and the Government is told to pay a certain amount for a number of years. The Government does that without questioning or analyzing the books. But they will tell you that the Treasury knows. Yet, they are the consumer departments of the Treasury. I do not think it is fair to expect the Treasury--- I know it is the responsibility of the Treasury to source 754 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES April 18, 2007 for funds. But it is also the responsibility of the various departments and parastatals, who are the final consumers, to know how much was borrowed, what is pending and when it should be paid. You cannot continue to pay monies which you have no idea about. We can repay those monies forever! At times, I wonder whether all the loans that this country has incurred are actually genuine. Sincerely, this country must look at some of those loans. It is not fair for the future generations to pay for monies which they have no clue about and, probably, monies that were not rightly incurred. That is corruption of the highest order! Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, cases of variations are some of the problems that this country faces. You award a tender worth Kshs10 million to construct a road and before the contractor commences operations, he varies the contract from Kshs10 million to Kshs15 million. He starts work and, again, varies the contract to Kshs20 million. By the time the contractor completes work, you will have paid a contract sum five times the original value. We have cases in the PAC where a contract has been varied more than 1,000 times. I have always told engineers: If the cost of constructing a road is not plus or minus 10 per cent, then engineering ceases to be a science. It cannot be guesswork. You cannot tell me that this Chamber will cost Kshs10 million today and, finally, it costs Kshs200 million. What is design all about? Design, in my view, ceases to be any science that I thought I knew. I wonder why various Government departments would want to agree with the contractors when they issue various variations. I know variations are allowed. But they are plus or minus 10 per cent. You cannot be perfect in terms of estimates. There could be other unforseen cases. But that must not exceed certain limitations. Therefore, we must provide it in law that, no contract will be varied by more than 15 per cent or 10 per cent. If you vary a contract of Kshs100 million by 10 per cent, we are talking about Kshs 10 billion! That is money which is adequate to finance the Ministry of Agriculture, which is the backbone of this country. If you varied the same by 50 per cent, we are talking about Kshs50 billion."
}