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{
    "id": 560104,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/560104/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 505,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Keynan",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 41,
        "legal_name": "Adan Wehliye Keynan",
        "slug": "adan-keynan"
    },
    "content": "The other aspect concerns long-term loans. There has been confusion on who guarantees some of these long-term loans. Some key Government institutions like Nzoia Sugar Company, Mumias Sugar Company and Kenya Airways have suffered simply because they have got involved in long-term loans that they were not prepared to service. This is one of the issues that the auditors have also raised and we hope that in the near future this menace can be brought to an end. In the past, it was fashionable to go round and get a loan guaranteed by the Treasury. This practice has increased our national debt and it must be brought to an end. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, I would now like to talk about receiving unqualified reports of previous periods of audit queries that have not been resolved. I want to go on record that the Office of the Auditor-General has also been infiltrated by crooks and cartels. Without casting doubt on the independence of that Office, we have noted over the last two years that, today, you see an entity with serious audit issues dating back to ten years and then out of the blues, you are told that this audit has disappeared. If you ask about the issue, you are told that they are only in their files. We noted that that is fraud. This is corruption of the highest order and the Office of the Auditor-General must be put on notice that this Legislature, and by extension, the Public Investments Committee will not entertain that approach. Audit issues that are raised must be sorted out amicably. Once an audit report has been tabled before this House, the onus lies with Parliament to sort out those audit issues through the laid down procedures. We noted that this happened to a number of institutions and we have asked the Auditor-General to provide answers. We have had a session with him, we are still engaging with him and we hope that the hunter is not going to become the hunted. This is a serious issue that we have noted. It has happened to an institution like the National Social Security Fund (NSSF). We all know that the NSSF has had serious issues but out of the blues, this year, we were told that the books of the NSSF are clean. Nobody will believe this because there are cases and many issues of land dating back to the last two decades. The cases pending in court and the audit issues total to billions of taxpayers’ money and yet somebody has the audacity to come and tell us that they have cleared their books. How? The same person says that this is just for the books, but they have all the audit issues in their files. The Kenyan taxpayer does not have the opportunity to interrogate what is kept in a file in the Auditor-General’s Office. The Kenyan taxpayer has the opportunity to interrogate issues before this House and issues that are within the domain of their elected representatives. This bit is lacking. Very soon, we will be documenting how that menace can be brought to an end. It is something that started recently and I hope it is not part of the new found tricks on circumventing the rule of law."
}