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{
    "id": 232510,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/232510/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 366,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Ojaamong",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 196,
        "legal_name": "Sospeter Odeke Ojaamongson",
        "slug": "sospeter-ojaamongson"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me the opportunity to contribute to this debate. First of all, I wish to support the Motion. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I must pay tribute to my party, the Liberal Democratic Party, for having appointed me to serve in this Committee when this Parliament started. I also wish to thank the other parties which supported me in the election of Mr. Omingo to chair the Public Accounts Committee. In the course of our work, we faced a very technical problem because these irregular expenditures were incurred by the previous regime, which was under KANU. So, I saw no reason as to why KANU should have audited its own accounts. That is why I went out of my way to propose Mr. Omingo as the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee; instead of Mr. Kenyatta, who was the KANU Chairman at the time. I also want to thank Mr. Ethuro, who seconded the chairmanship of Mr. Omingo. Indeed, our Committee worked as a team. We listened to various witnesses from various Ministries. We went round the country and saw for ourselves the kind of projects that were undertaken. What we saw was a real plunder of public funds. Had the wasted funds been put into proper use, I do not think we would be suffering the way we are now. For instance, when we went through the accounts of the Electoral Commission of Kenya, we found incidents whereby ghost vehicles were hired to take care of the transportation of election officials and materials. In real sense, very few vehicles were hired to do the job but the quotations were inflated to the extent that one would wonder why so much money was spent for the various reasons indicated in the Commission's accounts. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, in fact, most of the irregularities were not even unearthed by the Public Accounts Committee. They were detected by the Commission's officials themselves very early, during the election time but no action was taken. The problem was carried forward until the Controller and Auditor-General detected them and included them in his report. They eventually ended up being discussed by the Committee, which finally came up with these recommendations. It is very unfortunate that the Committee's recommendations have not been acted upon, as my colleagues who spoke earlier said. The former Ministry of East African and Regional Co-operation was being housed at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre (KICC). The Ministry, time and again, in the period between 1993-1999, undertook very imaginary renovations of the KICC."
}