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{
    "id": 696854,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/696854/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 282,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. J.K. Chege",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2129,
        "legal_name": "John Kiragu Chege",
        "slug": "john-kiragu-chege"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, for giving me an opportunity to air my views. I would, first, like to support the 20th Report of the PIC. I want to note that the 64 State corporations mentioned in this Report are very important. They cover a number of areas, including agriculture, universities and middle-level college, education, medicine, power generation, infrastructure and regulatory bodies. As my colleagues have mentioned, these parastatals were created to provide services to Kenyans in a manner that they can deliver quality services. Kenya has demonstrated over the years that she has people who can run businesses properly. We are known in this region as people who provide manpower not only to the East African region but also overseas. Some of the institutions that are doing well in Africa have the expertise of many Kenyans. It is worrying that when it comes to state corporations, we take them as avenues for enriching ourselves. I am a Member of this Committee. As we conducted interviews, we could not fail to notice that the quality of the management teams and the board members did not measure to the responsibility of the various State corporations. Some of the corporations require managers with specialised skills. For some reasons, some State corporations do not even have board members. Some have board members who do not meet the bare minimum requirements to run State corporations. You can see that when they appear before the Committee. They were never prepared. Most of the time, there was time wasting. If you looked further, you realised that most of them lacked the capacity. If we are to help the parastatals grow and become efficient, this House must ensure that the Executive appoints qualified Kenyans to run the organisations. We must also make sure that as we appoint people to the various boards of parastatals, we avoid nepotism. We must provide the institutions with the most qualified Kenyans to run them. We risk losing the organisations if we appoint people from our villages to run them. If you look at the organisations that are responsible for overseeing these corporations, you will find that the Auditor-General does not have adequate budget. If you look at the amount of load the Auditor-General has because of devolution, you will realise that he has a challenge of looking into the operations of these corporations. Some of the challenges they have had is that of going out to pick private parties to do what they must be doing. In fact, we need to help the Auditor-General so that he can have enough budgetary allocation to do his job and also recruit qualified and specialised people who can deal with the challenges they have. There is a tendency to think that one of the problems we have in these parastatals is financial. When I look at the submissions on the challenges that are facing these State corporations, I realise that some of their problems are technical. There are people who think that they will use technical manoeuvres to achieve what they want to achieve. On the matter of conspiracy or what you can call collusion, you will realise that there seems to be a conspiracy to loot these State corporations. This conspiracy covers various arms of our governance. People who are in the board and officers who work there do so with investigating authorities. Some work with the business community. Even when there is an obvious case of money being taken out of a State corporation, you wonder why people cannot be put behind bars. You will also realise that even the Judiciary has its own challenges. If you read this Report, you will find that some of the cases have been in court for many years. Why? It is because it is not in the interest of those involved that these cases must be concluded. We must understand that if we do not run State corporations properly or secure them, the cost of doing business and providing services in this country will continue to go up. Unfortunately, the person who suffers is the ordinary Kenyan. The monies we lose by running down parastatals could be used for water supply, providing electricity and building roads. It is 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."
}