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"id": 232515,
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Wetangula",
"speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs",
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"legal_name": "Moses Masika Wetangula",
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"content": " Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me an opportunity to contribute to this Motion. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to congratulate Mr. Omingo for presiding over the Committee during that time and for doing a thorough job. This resulted in the Committee report that is before the House. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, PAC reports are factual. They relate to an analysis of expenditure and events that have happened. When PAC reports are brought here, one of the critical lessons we have to learn from them is to ensure that the flaws that led to haemorrhages of public finances, and were detected by this House through its committees, are sealed. The sanctuaries of those who cause the haemorrhage of funds should be destroyed and lessons learnt from these reports, so that similar misdemeanours and felonies are not committed again. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, right from Independence, this country has suffered from improper use of public funds, particularly by public servants. This happens in many ways. You know it because you have been a Minister in the Government. Public officers literally hold everybody hostage. The Ministers, Parliament and everybody is held hostage by them. Every time you make inquiries, they fly on your face ridiculous booklets called \"Rules of Procurement\" and so on. We recently passed a procurement Bill. This is a Bill that is under the management of my good younger brother, who is siting behind me, the Minister for Finance. However, when you go out there, we see the pilferage of public funds going on as usual. All this is happening in the name of procurement. The book that Mr. Omingo tabled here has a litany of cases of pilferage. I can give you an example, last year, the Ministry of Health allocated funds countrywide to health centres and dispensaries. In my constituency some little money--- It was not much, but theft is theft, whether it is of millions of shillings or of little money. One health centre in my constituency received Kshs240,000, so did others all over the country. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, when I went to the health centre to check how the money had been spent, I found that the level of theft committed by civil servants was shocking. A tin of Sadolin paint that costs Kshs295, they were buying it from a shop in Bungoma Town at Kshs970. It looks as if it is no money, but you should look at it in percentage terms. There are clay bricks which are moulded by youths in my constituency, which are available 500 metres away from the health centre. They were procuring a brick that costs Kshs3 at Kshs17.90. When you go and complain, they tell you that this is how procurement is done. They tell you that they sent out quotations. This country and the Government should not be held hostage to spurious rules of procurement. If in the village of Siakago everybody knows that a moulded and burnt red brick costs Kshs3, why would anybody be allowed to procure it at Kshs17? This is all in the name of November 29, 2006 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 4071 procurement. We are recording a lot of success with the Constituencies Development Fund (CDF). I know that we have some colleagues who have managed the funds badly, but they are a hopeless minority. Those who are bastardising the CDF are largely our competitors who want to come to this House looking for excuses. When you look at the management of the CDF, you will find that out of the 210 constituencies, flaws could be found in less than 10 per cent or thereabouts. The rest of the constituencies are doing reasonably well. This is because of the rules that are formulated from the Treasury that each project must have a project committee. That project committee must have a procurement sub-committee within it and it must procure things locally. So that when you take money to a school, the project committee are invariably the parents of that school. From within them, you will have the procurement committee. They will find it highly immoral to buy a brick worth Kshs3 for Kshs17. Those senior Government officers like the Medical Officers of Health (MOHs), procurement officers, District Accountants and District Development Officers are all thieves. They sit at the district headquarters without caring that this money that we are ploughing back to the people is tax-payers money. They do not work for the Government or for the people. They work for themselves. If you post a senior Government officer to a district to work, you will find that within a year, he has built a house and a shop there and he is building something back home and there is no evidence that he has taken a loan or he is spending his salary. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I am urging the Minister for Finance to find time, now that we are going on recess soon, to call Parliament and other persons who are involved in the management of public resources, and take us to a workshop to audit the procurement process in this country. There is no point, day in, day out, budgeting for money here, quarrelling that little money has gone to some people's constituencies and a lot of money to others, and at the end of the day, even areas that have received more money end up worse than areas that have received less money. The amount of money being pocketed by officers in leadership is colossal. This practice is not just confined to the Government. Even if you go to the private sector, it has been permeated by this same sickness of procurement. We need a major surgery! The largest business enterprise anywhere in the world is the government. If you want to do business, whether you are in the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Kenya or even Somalia, the biggest business enterprise is the government. It is the government that builds roads, undertakes major water works, sewerage systems and everything else. Let us not have the ritual of debating the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) reports here every year. Let these lessons that we are given here be a wake up call to turn round and say: \"Surely, how do we close these loopholes?\" Somebody stole money last year and we will be crying over spilt milk. How we stop someone from stealing money tomorrow is what is key. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I am afraid from the example I have given you about my dispensary and many more. The Procurement Act that we passed, either is not fully operationalised or if it is, we did not pass a good law. If it is not operationalised, we need to have it operationalised and have the whole country sensitized on procurement. The whole country should be told that if there is Kshs900 million doing a road from Maai Mahiu to Narok, let Mr. ole Ntimama and the people he represents know and they will be able to tell whether the Chief Engineer, Roads, will have money more than his salary after that road is constructed. We have been told many stories on how these fellows make money. They can shorten a road by two inches. If a road is 100 kilometres, that is millions of shillings. They can understate the quality of materials. For Heaven's sake, I want to appeal to Kenyans, if you have been given a position of responsibility, whether in the Government or the private sector, it is absolutely critical and moral that if you are in charge of a road, let there be a road. If you are in charge of a water works, let there be water. Otherwise, on the day of judgement, I think we will 4072 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES November 29, 2006 have many more headed to the highway to hell than to Heaven because of this immoral behaviour. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, as I finish my remarks, I want to urge the Minister that, please, we do not want to stand here and be defensive or engage in explanations that are unhelpful. Let us sensitise the public, call Parliament particularly to audit the Procurement Act and process. Even if the Act has not been operationalised, we can still enrich it before it is operationalised to make sure that every project has a project management committee that is accountable and that will be able to oversee procurement. There are cases where someone sits in an office in Nairobi procures for something in Moyale or Kipipiri and yet, he has not been there. Such a person has no sensitivity about what is going to be done. Therefore, he does not even care at all. This country is very rich and has a lot of resources. We speak with a lot of pride because this year's Budget has only 6 per cent component of foreign support. That is money from you and I, and everybody else. If you go to our neighbours, they are getting up to 45 or 46 per cent budget support. If you look at Egypt, for example, the United States of America (USA) is subsidising their budget by over 80 per cent. But here, it is our own money. What more can we demand from our public officers other than being honest custodians and watchmen of our money. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}