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{
    "id": 560929,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/560929/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 511,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Keynan",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 41,
        "legal_name": "Adan Wehliye Keynan",
        "slug": "adan-keynan"
    },
    "content": "Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, another issue we realised is the non-payment of statutory deductions which are mandatory. These include NSSF deductions, retirement and medical benefits. Once your employer does not make proper returns of these statutory deductions and you retire, you are told that your employer has not submitted those amounts. Where do you go? You have been working in the public service or in a State corporation for over 60 years but when your time to retire comes and you go to the NSSF, you are told that your former employer has not been submitting the deductions. We are lucky that we do not have the culture of many incidents of suicide. If that was the trend, we would have had many of our old citizens killing themselves. This menace must be fixed once and for all so that retirement is not equivalent to being condemned to life imprisonment. This has happened simply because some of those organisations did not apply or follow their own procedures. The other issue relates to delay in the constitution of boards. Even under the Jubilee Government, some of the parastatals have remained without functioning boards for the last three years. Why would the appointing authority wait and allow an organisation to function without a board which is the highest organ? I would like to say that individuals and cartels take advantage of that lacuna to mismanage those parastatals. We have witnessed organisations without a functioning board and a substantive Chief Executive Officer for two or even three years. How will such an organisation, enterprise or public investment function without proper oversight? This has been the trend. If I give you the list you will be surprised. Several parastatals have operated without these key oversight groups. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, I would like to talk about payment of board allowances which has also been abused. Payment to board members is regulated through an Act, subsidiary legislation or regulations by the Treasury. This has not been followed. Board members of different organisations just sit and say that they would be paid Kshs50,000 or Kshs100,000 allowance. They would come the following month and say that because of inflation, they would have their allowances increased. That has been the trend. This must be managed and brought into conformity with the law so that all Government parastatals, regardless of whether they are in Class A, B, C or D, have a consistent and predictable mechanism of earning their allowances. This has also been lacking. It is one of the areas where the auditors have noted has been abused. The other issue concerns budgetary control. These entities are not creatures on their own because they have been created by a statute and law. The budget-making process must be fair, predictable and based on the law. We have had instances where organisations come up with all sorts of projects and do all sorts of things without having any regard for the budgetary allocation. This is why we have very many stalled projects. This is one area that has really been abused. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, illegal allocation of corporation land was another issue of concern to the Committee. Today, the illegal allocation of land rightfully belonging to some of these entities can total to even trillions of shillings. I want to go on record and appeal to His Excellency the President and the Deputy President to go and chase these individuals who have corruptly allocated themselves land belonging to some of these key institutions. On the face of it, we want to industrialise and develop. How do you develop when the very facilities like the Kenya Ports Authority (KPA), Kenya Airports Authority (KAA), Kenya Marine Institute, Kenya Railways Corporation (KRC) and Kenya Meat Commission (KMC) illegally allocate land? KMC is one of the oldest commissions but today, even the piece of land where the facility is located is owned by a land grabber. How do you expect an investor to invest 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."
}