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{
    "id": 719568,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/719568/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 199,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Tonui",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1242,
        "legal_name": "Ronald Kiprotich Tonui",
        "slug": "ronald-kiprotich-tonui"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker for this opportunity to also contribute to this Bill. Initially, I was to support it but having listened to the many comments about this Bill, I am convinced that there is a big problem. The Chairman also failed to highlight the report of the Departmental Committee on Finance, Planning and Trade in which it made some observations where it says that Parliament is supreme in the issues of privatisation and it should not be excluded in the approval process, especially on the issues of disposal of assets of the public. I understand that possibly, this Bill came with very good intentions. Currently, Parliament is very slow in approving various Bills and Motions which come to this House and it brings paralysis in the Executive such as the nominees to the Privatisation Commission where I understand the Commission stayed for more than a year or nearly a year without commissioners simply because Parliament never had time to approve those who had been appointed to hold the positions in the Privatisation Commission. That was why there was this proposal of going through the competitive recruitment rather than through the parliamentary approval. That was not a bad intention. It was a good intention. I tend to think it can be highly misused. Parliament has that very important role of oversight. Whatever Parliament does not approve directly, it can still deal with through oversight. There are certain sections of this Bill which are also very good which we do not need to throw away, such as Clause 4(2) which deals with favourable performance evaluation for reappointment. This needs to be retained so that whoever needs to be reappointed must first of all be re-evaluated to see if they perform during their first term. The process of this evaluation needs to also be captured in this Bill, which is missing at the moment. Clause 5 which also tries to exclude Parliament in coming up with proposals on privatisation is also negative and we should not support it. We can only support with an amendment that those proposals which come from Cabinet must come through Parliament and this House. Otherwise, I believe the whole idea of privatisation is good. We need to privatise those non-performing parastatals and those which are siphoning out public funds so that we can use those public funds in a more effective way like ensuring that we provide better health services, better roads and supply our people with water instead of investing lots of resources in those loss-making parastatals. We need to privatise all of them completely not partially, the way we did for Mumias Sugar Company or Kenya Airways where the Government still owns some shares so that every now and then we are called upon to provide more funds to these wasteful institutions. I appreciate what happened at the Webuye Pan Paper Mill which was privatised and it will take off. That is the direction we need to go and ensure that those institutions perform, especially those ones in the agriculture sector. I have had problems in my place when we write off debts for farmers in the coffee sub-sector and the sugar sub-sector but when it comes to farmers in the tea sub-sector, no write-offs are ever done, which is quite discriminatory. If we are to privatise parastatals such as those in the sugar sub-sector, that should be welcome so that it 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."
}