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{
    "id": 420139,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/420139/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 130,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. (Dr.) Pukose",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1458,
        "legal_name": "Robert Pukose",
        "slug": "robert-pukose"
    },
    "content": "On the outstanding imprest figure of Kshs16.3 billion as at that time, we do not know the position as of now. It could have gone up or down. Could the officers who took the imprest have since accounted for the money? These are the issues we need to consider. These are some of the challenges facing the Government. Even as the President and the Deputy President talk about reduction of the wage bill, these are the areas we have in mind when we talk about pilferage. These are the areas where the Government is losing money. Talking of pending bills, people have supplied goods and services to the Government. They have engaged in Government contracts in various stages. This may include supplying commodities to Government institutions or carrying out some works within the various Government institutions. These are Kenyans who have invested their money. As a businessman, you expect that at the end of your investment, somebody will pay you. If, for example, this was under the Ministry of Medical Services or the Office of the Prime Minister, and that pending bill was carried forward up to today, who would pay it? We are hurting Kenyans who have invested their hard-earned cash to be able to come up with an investment that can move them to the next step; they now move around and are tossed from one office to another in the name of trying to recover their money. At one time, when I was working as a medical superintendent, an old man was following up on payment, having repaired a vehicle for the Ministry in the early 1990s, when I was a student at the university. In 2009, when I was a medical superintendent, he was still following up the payment. This was as a result of the splitting of the Ministry of Health into the Ministry Public Health and Sanitation and the Ministry of Medical Services. He was told that the vehicle he had repaired belonged to the Medical Officer of Health (MoH), who was then in the Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation. If you look at the budget of the MoH, you realise that he is not even able to take care of such pending bills. So, such Kenyans end up losing their hard-earned money. These are serious issues we need to look at. As much as it is too late, we can still debate it and come up with various recommendations that will enable the Government to come up with proper decisions. The other day I heard the Deputy President talking about the cost of Government commodities. If you supply even pens to the Government, you have to charge up to even three times the sale price in a shop. This is the tendering process that we have in place. Can we come up with decisions that can inform the PAC to look at how to improve our procurement processes? Do we do it in such a way that we make the taxpayer pay more The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}