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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I commenced moving this Motion yesterday and, therefore, I will spend a little time to recap on what I spent time on yesterday, and then proceed to give a detailed analysis of what our findings were in our Committee that sat in the year 2003 in terms of investigating the accounts for 1998/99. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, as I had said, there has been \"cannibalization\". The resources of this country have been \"eaten\" up by a few sharks. As if that is not enough, that habit continues even now with impunity. It is for that reason that we intend, and we must, as a necessity in our recommendation, to have the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) not conducting a post- mortem on dry bones, but stopping irregularities and wastage on a daily basis. That can only be done if PAC is given capacity to research. Given that this report comes from the Controller and Auditor-General's office, the office should be given sufficient capacity. If possible, Parliament should be connected with them in terms of queries, so that we can also be pro-active in terms of investigating and stopping wastage as it continues. We are now dealing with the Report of Financial Year 1998/1999 when those who \"ate\" have either retired or passed on to the next world. For that reason, I request that this House adopts this Report, so that Parliament can be more pro- active as opposed to doing a post-mortem. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I highlighted some of the anomalies in the projects we visited, including some white elephants today. PAC recommends, but the implementing agency who is supposed to be the Chief Legal Advisor does not take action. It is a pathetic situation where we find that the recommendations are made year in, year out, but nobody cares to implement the same. I had moved to talk about construction of Customs houses which were, indeed, a white elephant project. I also stated issues regarding the YK-compliant computers which were acquired without technical support and evaluation. Treasury, the biggest financier and supporter, passed them to Ministries without a technical report on their authenticity and their being user- friendly or technically-compliant. That was in excess of Kshs440 million, which is £2.6 million. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I stopped at the point where imprest in the Ministries are not surrendered. When I talked about \"cannibalization\" of our resources, it does not stop there. It has even gone to the political parties. People are now \"cannibalising\" parties. They are \"eating\" them as if they were resources. But that is an appendage of one wanting to entrench himself in power. They want to maintain the status quo and continue eating. Usually, an officer is supposed to surrender the imprest within 48 hours upon return from 4056 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES November 29, 2006 an official visit for purposes of accounting and justification. Among the Ministries which were outrightly flouting the rules, was State House. That is amazing, yet again, the office of the Attorney-General, the custodian of the law, disobeyed or broke the law. Then one wonders; if the Chief Legal Advisor's office is not legally operating, how will we advise others to obey the same law? It is the same issues that we have heard year in, year out. Things are happening with impunity and they must stop. Even if they do not do, I am sure they have heard. History is being written and it will judge them harshly. The truth can never be sat on. It will germinate in whatever form. The Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of Energy and Office of the President were part of the game. The holders of imprests wasted billions of shillings in uncounted for imprests. Some of the officers retired without surrendering the imprests. Some could not be traced while others died. As a result, Treasury lost a substantial amount of money. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, regarding public hearings of the PAC proceedings, we all know for a fact that indeed, exposure is part of a deterrent feature. This House did recommend that our business be open to the public. Unfortunately, I remember the Chairman of that Committee is now the current Minister for Agriculture, Mr. Kirwa. They did a wonderful job and they visited places and recommended on what was supposed to be done about opening up Parliament to the public. Why is it important? I am talking about those people who \"eat\" blood money. It is important that their children in their sitting rooms, get to know that their father brought home stolen money. They can either choose to look for a foster father other than \"eating\" the blood money or they could even query their fathers as a social check. If you are driving a Mercedes Benz bought with stolen money, and it will be exposed in PAC sittings, when you drive it you do not derive any pleasure. Therefore, exposure is part of a deterrent feature. The Committee noted with concern that despite its previous recommendations that Committee hearings be open to the public, its hearing remain closed. In Uganda, PAC is assisted by the police and the investigating officers. When you are suspected to be an offender, the investigators and the police do not have to open a file and commence investigations because they have had facts from PAC and that is evidence enough to prosecute the culprits. That is also a deterrent feature. To enhance accountability, transparency and good governance, the PAC hearings should be open to the public in line with what is happening in many parliaments of the world. The Committee reiterates its earlier recommendations. If they are going to be implemented, so be it, but I know we are talking to stones. They do not even listen. However, the Standing Orders Committee must consider amending relevant Standing Orders in order to achieve the objective of opening parliament to the public. That is also important. When you find Minister \"X\" dozing during the Budget Day or when the Budget is being debated, the voters can know that they elected a \"sleeper\". If the seats are also empty, voters can also know who represents them in the House and take action in future. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the Committee would like to thank the Attorney- General, the Head of the Public Service and Secretary to the Cabinet, the Permanent Secretary to the Treasury and the Permanent Secretary, Directorate of Personnel Management for appearing before it to respond to policy matters which arose during the appearance of various Accounting Officers. Deliberations were mainly on expenditure control, statement of public debts, pending bills, abandoned projects, collection of Appropriations-in-Aid (A-in-A), outstanding imprests and compensation and ex-gratia payments. The Committee would further wish to thank all Accounting Officers who appeared before it for their co-operation. Having said that, you find some serious flaws in terms of co-ordination within Ministries. An issue of pending bills, as I said yesterday, is a thorny issue in our resource management. Application of resources for purposes intended, has been an issue in this Government. It is important that today, we become accountable to people and justify every coin we use for purposes November 29, 2006 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 4057 of value addition. Of course, we do know that the Government is not supposed to be involved in business, but there is a provision - a generally accepted accounting practice and social background - that we must provide social good to the public. How do we assess social good? It is by providing good infrastructure, water and electricity. It is a bit unfortunate that when I find that we are borrowing money to enjoy and return to the coffers in terms of technical support, it is high time we evaluated what money we are receiving and for what purpose and who signs for it. The Committee would like to thank the Speaker, the Deputy Speaker and the Clerk of the National Assembly for facilitating its sittings, and while undertaking inspection tours and visits to other parts of the country and out of the country. The Committee visited the Parliaments of Canada in Ontario and the Federal Parliament of the United States of America. The Committee laid on the Table of the House reports, which have not seen the light of day, in terms of prioritisation by the House Business Committee. The recommendations done by the Committee in those reports were quite radical, in terms of changing the face of this Parliament into a First World Parliament. The Committee also wishes to extend its appreciation for services rendered by officers from the Kenya National Audit Office (KNAO), the Treasury and the Office of the Clerk of the National Assembly. Indeed, their efforts made the work of the Committee and the production of this Report possible. Having made those preliminaries, I would like to go into a few specific issues and then allow my colleagues to contribute. As I said yesterday, this Committee arrived at this Report on consensus. Therefore, if there is no any iota of doubt, you should know that implementing this Report would be a noble thing for this country. We should give respect to taxpayers who have been giving us their money to look after. I talked earlier about a Customs project. It is important to amplify the issue and give specific statements. However, as I said, some of the people who floated the regulations of procurement and the errand contractors are still in the register of Government contractors, of course for convenience and kick-backs. Secondly, the contractors are being paid for the shoddy work that they did, which was not completed and was not valuable to the Ministries. I am talking about a project in Oloitokitok. When we visited the project, we found that any sensible human being with feelings, no matter how strong, could not avoid to shed a tear. It was a white elephant project. We saw around 53 houses with seven officers seated inside. The revenue for that project cost the Government Kshs531 million; the Oloitokitok Customs Project. That is not interesting. The project was initiated without a feasibility study and given to the fourth lowest bidder, in the pretext that he was far more expensive than the first, second and third bidders and, therefore, may not need a re- evaluation. On the contrary, the contract was revalued upwards into some penalties which stood at Kshs531 million and was to be paid to a contractor in the name of Don Wood. As I said yesterday, the gentlemen push a wheelbarrow, without a wheel and wait to hand over the project to the Government, as the other machineries worked for the Government elsewhere, in the pretext that they had not handed over the project. That way, they would continue accumulating liabilities and penalties for the Government. At that time, we had Kshs612 million outstanding pending bills, in the name of the same contractor. The project was supposed to cost Kshs44 million. However, it was revalued upwards to Kshs531 million. The pending bills stood at Kshs612 million, and accumulated to a total of Kshs1.1 billion. Amazingly, the revenue from the \"white elephant\" was Kshs2,500 per month. So, if you want to recover the money, it would take you more than 1 million years. We recommended that the Accounting Officer - this is the first time that we did not want to beat about the bush and mentioned his name - should assist the Attorney-General, if he finds it difficult to trace who the Minister was, to get the information and annex it to this report for expediting. That is if he can, although I doubt if it will happen. The recommendations were that the then Accounting Officer, Ministry of Finance and the then Accounting Officer, Ministry of Roads 4058 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES November 29, 2006 and Public Works be held responsible for losses incurred by the Government in that project. That case is similar to the Shimoni Customs Office Project. I said yesterday that the arrangement in the two projects was the same. The contractors were spending money because it was available and as long as one had something to gain from the project. The Accounting Officer should have ensured that the buildings were put into use by June, 2006. That period has already passed. The Ministry of Finance has this information and I hope that when we are getting the Treasury's response, the Minister will effect these recommendations, as this House adopts the Report in order to safeguard us from further vandalism and deterioration. We recommended that Don Woods Construction Company should, and must not be given more Government contracts. When hon. Mwiraria read his last Budget, this same company had pending bills of Kshs111 million. The Minister said that he would not pay the company. However, as of today, I think that money has fully been paid. The Director of the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission (KACC) should institute investigations into all the irregular transactions involving those projects so that all officers involved are prosecuted, if that can happen. That may be wishful thinking and I know it may even take 100 years. However, the truth will come to light one day. The contractor, Don Woods Construction Company, should be precluded from future awards or Government contracts and also be de- registered. Some contractors pretended that they were paying Value Added Tax (VAT) when in actual fact, they were not paying taxes at all. They were working for the Government and were paid their money, VAT-Inclusive, yet they were not paying the tax to the Government. So, they were actually double-robbing the Government, on shoddy jobs and direct payments and eating on VAT. There is someone out who was funding the project; the white elephant. In addition to the money paid to the contractor, he would facilitate the payment of VAT. Those are called smooth guys. That was an arrangement by someone from the Ministry of Finance. The Ministry of Finance should oversee the other Ministries' efficiency in terms of expenditure. In fact, it draws the rules of the game. There is also the case of Shimoni House which was built in a very fantastic way. However, there is no bridge to take Accounting Officers to the side of operation, which involves inspecting ships that are coming on board. I have a few more issues to raise and give other hon. Members time to contribute. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, there is something that we must appreciate. This Government and Parliament must act in the interest of Kenyans and also take responsibility for the future of Kenyans. We have seen cases where money that has been set aside for a particular project in the Budget returned to the donors. The explanation given by the Accounting Officers is that there was no project this money would have been channelled to. A good example is a grant that was given to us for purposes of training some officers of the Government. The reason why it was returned to the donors was that the Ministry could not identify the trainees and trainers. Why did we lose this grant? It is simply because it was coming in kind. There was no hard cash coming on board. There was nothing for the technocrats and, therefore, they said: \"We were trying to identify who needs to be trained.\" We lost about Kshs40 million. That money would have cushioned our Budget in terms of saving on our deficit. The procurement rules, procedures and bureaucracy in the Government is costing this country billions of shillings. I, therefore, want to urge this Government, as proactive as I believe it is, despite the fact that it has its own problems, to work in the interest of Kenyans. We should get value for our money. If we emphasise on efficiency, we will move forward. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the buck stops at the Attorney-General's office when it comes to the issue of wastage of Government resources, particularly on contract cases. I sympathise with the Attorney-General because he may be lacking capacity to prosecute. This is because most lawyers working in his office look for greener pastures and leave him with a skeleton November 29, 2006 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 4059 staff. But if we must stop that kind of wastage, technical advice, information and support in terms of legal provision must be given capacity. There is a case in this Report where a certain contractor went to court. In fact, he was induced to go to court by the technocrats. Unfortunately, he never appeared in court and the Government lost. He was supposed to defend the client, the Ministry of Roads and Public Works. They requested the Attorney-General to appeal against that decision, but he advised them to settle that matter out of court. Settlement out of court means that one must go to a hotel, take some coffee and, of course, there must be a mediator. They paid five times more than what they would have paid if the Attorney-General went to court. This is a total wastage of resources! A lot of money is lost because of our inability to prosecute on time or take action as advised. It appears like instead of the Attorney-General being in that office for the Government, most of the time, he acts for contractors. Some of these contractors exist, I am sure hon. Members know many of them. They were there yesterday and they will still be there tomorrow because they have a tap that they can turn on to release water to destinations that are so lucrative. Their doors are always open. However, a time will come when these doors will be closed. On the officials of the Government, I take issue with the engineers in the Ministry of Roads and Public Works. In a particular contract, the contractor did not request for variation. In fact, it is the Ministry's officials who advised him, and this is on record, to take a variation of the contract to take care of some other unforeseen contingencies which were not there during the signing of the contract. It is supposed to be the contrary. It is the contractor who is supposed to say: \"At the signing date, I did not foresee this and that.\" The technocrats acting for the contractor advised them---"
}