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{
    "id": 73362,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/73362/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 362,
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    "content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to, first and foremost, take this opportunity also to join my colleagues in commending the good work that has been done by this Committee under the able leadership of Dr. Khalwale who is a medic and yet he has done a wonderful job as an accountant. This Committee should be supported fully not only because it has done a good job but because this is the auditor of Parliament and for that matter, of the nation. It audits all the finances of the nation and it is important because it will then ensure that the finances of this country are taken good care of. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, even as we support this Committee, I am impressed to see that this is one Committee which had over 100 sittings. This means they were very committed and dedicated to their work. I really want to commend them. If this House was to give a medal to anybody, we could have given a medal to this Committee because they have done a wonderful job. Equally so, I am a bit disappointed that even up to now the Accounting Officers are not taking their job seriously. One of the things that this Committee has come up with in their Report is that there are still a lot of missing documents even when they go about doing their jobs. I think it is the responsibility of Accounting Officers to ensure that the documents required are in place so that the work of this Committee and that of the other Government departments which do audit are made easy by availing all the required documents. It is incumbent upon the Accounting Officers to ensure that there are documents which are required in this exercise. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, it is also disappointing to note that quite a number of accounting officers do not do their work properly. A lot of them are still under the influence of impunity. With the promulgation of the new Constitution, there should be no any impunity in our system. The culture of impunity should now be a thing of the past. Quite a number of Accounting Officers spend money without proper authorization or they incur expenditure which is not right. That is extremely important because expenditure must be within the required means. We do not want to see Accounting Officers of different departments spending much more than what they are required to do without the authority to do so. Equally so, there are quite a number of Government departments which under- spend and yet services are required in this country. You find that sometimes, money is returned to the Treasury and yet there is a lot of need in that department to give services to this country. Such accounting officers should not be entertained in this country. They should not be entertained in public offices because they are doing disservice to our people. These are areas which we must look into to ensure that as the engine of the nation which Parliament is, we ensure that, that service which is supposed to be given to our citizens is given. There are also quite a lot of pending bills. You find a lot of pending bills and money is returned to the Treasury. We must have legislation in place to ensure that if this kind of thing happens, the officers responsible should not occupy public offices. I was amazed to see that we have a debt of Kshs1.2 Trillion. I was happy to see that the foreign debt is fully skewered and can be managed. From the report that I saw of this Committee, the recommendation is that the local borrowing is not done properly. I think it is important that this House ensures that we put in place a mechanism which ensures that such internal borrowing is done within the laid down regulations so that we do not lose a lot of money in unorthodox ways. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, Kshs1.2 trillion is a lot of money that we have borrowed. This is a big debt which will go for many years before it is settled. So,"
}