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"id": 231919,
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Ethuro",
"speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Planning and National Development",
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"legal_name": "Ekwee David Ethuro",
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"content": " Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir for giving me this opportunity. I want to encourage the House to adopt the Report of the Public Accounts Committee on the Government of Kenya Accounts for the year 1998/99. I had the privilege of serving in the Committee when it came up with the Report. We had a very good Committee chaired by the very able, hon. Omingo. Of all the accusations and negative things which have been said about the Committee, I can say for sure that I never saw anything to do with impropriety on the part of the PAC, at least in the time that I served in it. I also want to believe that every other time that the Committee has been accused of anything negative, it has been out of mere rumours. We had a very dedicated team that met very often, and never lacked quorum. Quite a number of times, I was an Acting Chairman. So I have some pride of ownership in this particular Report. Indeed, no wonder most hon. Members who served in the Committee ended up being appointed as Assistant Ministers. That is a reflection of the good work we did while serving in the Committee. While I want to congratulate the Committee, I also want to acknowledge the structural problems that the oldest watchdog committee in all the Parliaments experiences. The oldest watchdog Committee in most Parliaments transacts its mandate on behalf of the House to ensure that taxes paid to the Government are utilised properly. These are structural flaws that impede the realisation of Parliaments' role in the whole world. This Report was addressed in the year 2003, while the events discussed took place in 1998. So, we had a lapse of five years. A decade later, we are now presenting the Report to this House. I think there was a systematic deliberate move by the Executive; that was never committed to transparency and accountability; as a reflection of the single party dictatorship, to make sure that this House does not become effective. It took dedication of hon. Members to hasten the work of the Committee. At one time, we decided to start handling accounting reports of two years at a go. I remember there is a time when we published four reports at a go, including the one of the Anglo 4106 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES November 30, 2006 Leasing Scandal. That was an achievement because we wanted to catch up and remain relevant to the current issues of misappropriation and value for money. The deliberate move by the Executive to impede the work of Parliament is a big problem, and I wish to go on record as having said that. I want to take this opportunity to thank the Office of the Controller and Auditor-General. In spite of all the problems faced, the Controller and Auditor-General never failed to present or submit his annual accounts to this House. His officers never failed to show up at Committee meetings and made sure that we got the necessary reports. The officers did a brilliant job; they were always available and performed extremely well. I would like to thank the now retired, Mr. Mwai, for a job well done. At times, there were deliberate moves to impede his work. It is up to us to commend such Kenyans for a job well done, even when they could have succumbed to temptations put before them. We considered and ensured that this Parliament holds an annual orientation seminar for all hon. Members and other players of PAC. We even went further and proposed a seminar for all Permanent Secretaries who were Accounting Officers, so that when they appeared before the PAC, they would know exactly what was required of them. Hon. Omingo and I no longer serve in the Committee. I hope that the Clerk of the Kenya National Assembly will continue with the good work we started, of ensuring that the Committee is given sufficient strength and capacity to do the job it does on behalf of the House. As Committee Members, we went further to make sure that we had a Regional East Africa Public Accounts Committee, where Kenya was elected to Chair so that, as a region, we could compare notes with our neighbours such as Uganda and Tanzania, in terms of sharing good practices and learn lessons from their Parliaments. That way, we would enhance and enrich productivity of the Committee, and Parliament in general. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I totally agree with the views expressed by Mr. Muturi. It is the responsibility of the representatives of the Ministry of Finance to always appear before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and other committees. The PAC should always refer to the previous resolutions or recommendations. If you go through this Report, you will see a recommendation that says: \"We strongly urge the Accounting Officer to implement the previous recommendation.\" This recommendation is found in almost every page of this Report. As a House, we should say we are tired of working in vain. If this institution has a role to play in this land, it is important that, that role is appreciated. Whoever is supposed to take action should do so. The reports of the PAC are becoming a litany of outright theft. A good example is the case of procurement that is done and there are no stocks in the stores to reflect what has been procured. In one case we discovered that there were no stock cards to record what was procured, issued and the balance. This is simple accounting and arithmetic that a child in elementary school ought to know. It is, therefore, unfortunate that our public officers pretended that they did not know. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we had the opportunity to visit various projects in this country. We made this as part of institutional arrangement at strengthening the PAC, that every quarter we should be able to visit certain projects. We had an opportunity to go to the customs unit in Shimoni. What we got there is basically a conspiracy by some people to loot the public. There were projects being done without anyone knowing whether we were getting value for money. For example, a police station was put up, but many years down the line, there were no police officers. The facility was not being used. This is a facility that cost Kshs1.2 billion, but in essence, it should have only cost Kshs100 million. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we also visited Ardhi House in Kericho. This is a project that was hardly started. When we visited this project, construction was just at the basement. I agree with the views expressed by Mr. Muturi, but he only singled out one person. However, he also belongs to a party that had a policy of making sure that they ruled through corruption. It is unfair to single out one individual who happens not to subscribe to some mainstream thinking. I November 30, 2006 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 4107 want to submit that there were many such individuals. It was a Government which had a policy to loot. We will continue condemning them even in their new camouflage of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM). They are the same people. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, public debt as reflected in this Report is at 53 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). We, as a country, have not been considered under the heavily indebted countries because despite the corruption that went on, there was something sensible about this country, we continued paying our obligations to our development partners. We really struggled to pay some of these loans. I have always urged my colleague, the Minister for Finance, and also within my Ministry of Planning and National Development, that it is high time that we made a recommendation as African Ministers of Economics and Finance. I had an opportunity of being in Cameroon and I was elected the Rapporteur of the Second Conference of the African Ministers of Economics and Finance. With Namibia, we said that we need to be considered in this programme so that we are forgiven the foreign debts and then we can grapple with the domestic debts. That should ease the burden in terms of repayment. However, more importantly, that we can target the kind of money that we would have paid for the debt in terms of the realisation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and making sure that we use that money to target the social services, especially education and health so that we deal with entrenched poverty in this country. Our estimates at the Ministry of Planing and National Development indicate that we need an additional US$2 billion to raise the required US$6 billion. We can raise US$4 billion from our revenue. We cannot manage when we have a public debt that is more than 50 per cent. It becomes a drain on our resources. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, another recommendation in this Report is that the Government should raise enough revenue. We all agree that this Government has considered that particular recommendation where total revenues have increased from Kshs150 billion to about Kshs350 billion. That is a recommendation that the NARC Government has taken into account. We commend the Government for improving revenue collection. We also commend His Excellency the President for always urging Kenyans to pay taxes. It is the taxes that are used to fund projects in this country. It is no wonder that every major road in this great Republic has a contractor on site. The job is not done, but at least, there are signs of hope. I am hopeful that when I will be going home in Lodwar, which is about 1,000 kilometres from here, I will be able to move on a smooth road. This is what happens when taxes are collected and our revenues improve. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we also realise that we want this money to be raised, so that the idea of the Constituencies Development Fund (CDF), which is so popular now, increases the absolute figures that can accrue to each constituency. That will go a long way in ensuring that there is at least some minimal development in each constituency in the Republic, irrespective of an hon. Members's position in Parliament, Government and political situation. These are things that my friends, who have decided to run away, need to appreciate. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the other recommendation of this Report is that of making the hearings of the PAC public. I want to single out this particular recommendation. If we are really serious about accountability, transparency and value for money, we need to do this. If Kenyans could have access to the proceedings of this committee through a dedicated television channel, this will go a long way in opening up issues of the PAC to Kenyans. This issue needs to be raised with Parliament, which passed a Motion for live transmission of proceedings. I do not know why we are delaying in doing this. I think this is part of the larger conspiracy to condone corruption. We, as an institution, are also to be blamed. We need to have public hearings for the PAC and the Public Investments Committee (PIC). When somebody's name is mentioned and he or she is enjoying his retirement benefits riding in good cars, flying in and out of the country and living in good houses, I am sure one will be very embarrassed if people discover that these are 4108 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES November 30, 2006 things acquired as a result of corrupt practices. Some few privileged Kenyans have swimming pools in their homes when people in Turkana Central Constituency cannot even have water to drink, except now in the last few days when we have experienced heavy rains that have caused a lot of flooding. We are a bit happy. However, if whoever is enjoying ill-gotten wealth realises that their names are being bundled around, that will be a good deterrent to any of those corrupt acts. We really need to amplify this point. It will be a major contribution by Parliament to good governance and to ensuring that looters do not go scot-free. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, apart from that failure by Parliament, there is also the failure to prioritise this Report for debate. This is another part of the conspiracy. As I mentioned, it is taking us about a decade to discuss things that happened a long time ago. Information can only be useful if it is timely. I think most of my colleagues have contributed on that aspect. We cannot overemphasise that issue. This is because sometimes you meet accounting officers freshly appointed by a new Government and there are no records to rely on. If it were not for the Kenya National Audit Office, this country would just be taken in a circus all along and every time. But if things happen within reasonable time; one, two, three years at most, in fact, most of these people would be in jail and some of them would not be serving in this Parliament. So, we need to prioritise so that we can dispose of some of these matters in the most efficient manner and in good time. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we need to empower the Public Accounts Committee. In our regional initiative, we learnt that the PAC in Uganda actually had an Inspector of Police in the Committee so that if the Committee determined that a person was not good enough, they had the capacity to put him within some cells in Parliament for one or two days so that they know the power of Parliament. But we are just sitting here thinking we are going to rely on other people and leaving Parliamentary supremacy to be undermined by everybody else. These are ways in which we can have the teeth to bite. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the Committee also visited Ontario, Canada and the USA. Unlike our friends in the media who think that MPs just go globe-trotting to enjoy tax- payers' money and do nothing, we learnt a lot. You cannot believe that in Ontario, people are no longer talking about petty things of who has stolen what. They are talking about value for money audit. What kind of money do you want to invest in a particular project that will give you higher returns? That is not what we are talking about here. We are talking about who bought a pencil which is supposed to cost Kshs10 at Kshs100. But there, they are talking about how do we use that Kshs10 in order to give us Kshs20. So, when we talk about the developed world and the developing world, these are the differences we witness. From these recommendations, we need to instil sufficient discipline in the staff of Treasury. I know that in this financial year, they had appointed financial controllers in every Ministry and it was surprising there was still wanton destruction of resources. If we have to go beyond this enumeration of theft to the real issue of value for money audit, we need to ensure that some of these recommendations where whoever is appointing the accounting officer is not also appointing the permanent secretary, then you have no power. Because if I have the power to appoint you, I should have the power to fire you. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, when I talk about excesses of the Executive in Parliament, when you get Permanent Secretaries being transferred every other day, you start wondering who is more permanent than the other. The Permanent Secretaries were the least permanent people from my experience in Government. You suspect why this was just a deliberate policy by Government to ensure that we do not track down the information; we do not get to know who is responsible for what. It always used to take a search, and we demanded as a Committee that both Parliament and Government should tell us who was the Permanent Secretary responsible for November 30, 2006 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 4109 whatever days, even if it were for 10 days. We wanted to know these people who were not responsible enough. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I can go on and on. But again, and I want to criticise my own side, because if the Ministry of Finance that is supposed to be doing a Treasury memorandum does not even care to come and listen to Members, then we are not serious with our work, and I agree with hon. Muturi. Government has to take this Parliament very seriously. They should know what the Members are saying so that when we get the memorandum of understanding by the Treasury, it has taken into account all these issues. If you read the memorandum of understanding that the Treasury is supposed to produce as a rejoinder to this particular report, you will be shocked. We are going to take action on this, we will take action on this; it is just stories. Another opportunity for Prof. Wangari Maathai to make another Kshs100 million because she will want those trees not to be cut and these guys are just cutting trees in order to produce more paper which is useless. With those remarks, I support this report and recommend to the House to adopt the Report of the Public Accounts Committee on the Government of Kenya accounts for the year 1998/99."
}