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"speaker_name": "Mr. Omingo",
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"legal_name": "James Omingo Magara",
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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, in the course of taking evidence, the Committee further noted, with regret, that the Attorney-General rarely won cases of the Government. Again, this is an issue that we, as a nation, must fully address. The Committee did not hear of any case the Attorney-General had won. In most cases, the awards were given to the complainant and the Ministry ordinarily lost because that was an easy pipe for exiting public resources. His office was either overwhelmed by the work load, there was laxity or he was incapable of representing the Government in court. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, due to the foregoing, the Committee recommends that the Government's representation in court should be decentralized from the Attorney-General's office. One key recommendation is that every Ministry should have a legal division with experts who can represent it in court in order to avoid payment of colossal sums of money and accrued interest arising from judgement against the Government. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, on evasion of payment of duty and other taxes, the Committee noted with utmost concern that a lot of rice was imported by NGOs such as M/s December 5, 2006 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 4155 Woman Kind and M/s International Child Trust (ICT) without payment of duty. M/s Woman Kind, which was allowed to import 200,000 metric tons under Treasury exemption for free distribution to refugee camps also cleared 35.215 metric tons without payment of duty. What we realised is that these goods, which were imported for distribution of relief food, were eventually sold. The Treasury had exempted 4,000 metric tons of rice from duty payment by M/s ICT, but the NGO cleared a further 22,518.75 metric tons without paying any duty. The cover was the one exemption and upon that they loaded more. The two NGOs ceased their operations in the country. We recommend that the Commissioner-General takes such kind of measures to plug in the revenue leakage. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, on diversion of transit goods for home use without payment of duty, this was another issue that was noted. Most goods meant for transit do not attract duty at the port of Mombasa, but as soon as the goods are inland, they are diverted to the Kenyan market. This, therefore, compromises competitive marketing and gives other traders undue advantage in the pretext of having goods for export. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, on the appearance of the Attorney-General and the Head of the Public Service and Secretary to the Cabinet before the Committee, this was done and we shared with the two. We got the co-operation required. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the Committee wishes to the thank the Speaker, the Deputy Speaker and the Clerk of the National Assembly for organising its sittings and funding its trips to Canada and the United States of America (USA). We never went there for holiday, we came back with a report. We tabled that report, but it has not found its way to this House. It is gathering dust somewhere in the shelves, courtesy of the House Business Committee. The Committee also wishes to thank the officers from the Treasury, the Kenya National Audit Office and the National Assembly for their services. The procedural advice given, records received and scrutinized and organisation of meetings and record keeping by the officers contributed a great deal towards the production of the Report. I want to specifically thank the Clerk of that Committee, Mrs. Munga, who spent sleepless nights drafting this Report. Every time we were ready to meet, she was ready with the reports. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to draw the attention of the House to page 131 of this Report, which talks about the Department of Defence (DoD). The cunning ways by which Ministries spend money is by committing themselves to spend under pending bills so that the following year, they can legitimise the expenditure. It is not necessarily that the pending bills are flawed. The issue is that they are committing Government to give them funds before Parliament gives the approval. That is a serious irregularity that needs to be addressed. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, besides the pending bills, some of which are actually illegitimate, they actually do things upside down. They will commit them the first day and say let us regularise that next year, to the extent that Parliament now becomes a rubber stamp. This is the case where a pending bill of close to Kshs500 million was pending in DoD. That is not acceptable."
}