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{
    "id": 420838,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/420838/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 238,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Ng’ongo",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 110,
        "legal_name": "John Mbadi Ng'ong'o",
        "slug": "john-mbadi"
    },
    "content": "The other issue that I wanted to touch on is with regard to management of public debt. The Committee, in the two Reports has noted that even after asking the accounting officers to provide for audit verification a full disclosure of the breakdown of the public debt, this did not take place as at the time of writing the Reports, and it is not acceptable. Once Committees of Parliament ask Ministries or accounting officers to give a breakdown of the money we borrowed and show where it is applied, that information needs to be given because this country has a history of cases where we have paid monies that were never utilized or applied in the right manner. The National Treasury must have in place an elaborate debt management plan to ensure that the Government always gets value for all money borrowed and that borrowed monies are also repaid in good time. A case in point that I want to talk about is with regard to the issue of KenRen Chemical and Fertilizer Company Limited. This goes a long way to give an answer that this country has a lot of revenue. We collect, borrow, but we misapply and therefore we come with these short-cuts of trying to reduce people’s salary to finance our Budget, yet there is a lot of money that is wasted. Take the example that happened in the 1970s. In the 1970s, it is a pity that this country owed money to some company that is non-existent. We owe money to Austrian and Belgium companies; how did we come to owe this money which we are paying currently? A joint venture was entered into between the Government and an American company called Enren and from there we formed “KenRen”. This company was supposed to manufacture fertilizer for both domestic and export market. What happened is that this company entered into several financial and equipment procurement contracts with various Austrian and Belgium banks, but these contracts were never honoured because the factory was never put in place to manufacture fertilizer as planned by the Government of Kenya. The Government of Kenya was supposed to be a guarantor. As at the time of writing these Reports, this country was still servicing a loan which stood at about Kshs.3 billion. Hon. Speaker, today, we are talking about the laptop project. This Government was just about to give a contract to a company which has no capacity to manufacture 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."
}