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{
    "id": 810698,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/810698/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 246,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Suba South, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. John Ng’ongo",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 110,
        "legal_name": "John Mbadi Ng'ong'o",
        "slug": "john-mbadi"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Deputy Speaker, for giving me this opportunity to contribute to the County Governments Retirement Scheme Bill. I start by saying that this is a Bill that should have actually been dispensed with earlier after the enactment of the new Constitution. We have had the county governments in place from 2013 to date yet there is no legally protected scheme that would help in managing the retirement contributions and benefits that would accrue to the members who are working or those who are employed by county governments. This is discriminatory because at the national Government level, we have different pension schemes managing the contributions of members. I think we need to be very clear and understand what it is. You have heard that there are about three Bills that are likely to be with us in Parliament. There was a Private Member’s Bill. There is this Bill which is a Government sponsored Bill that has actually come from the line ministry of finance or the National Treasury. Probably there is another one at the Senate which I do not want to refer to. I want to confine myself to the two Bills that probably found their way to the National Assembly. I have taken my time to look at these Bills and I want to be very categorical and clear that the first Bill that was a Private Member’s sponsored Bill was actually a Bill that was working in the interest of one of the schemes which, in my view, is a private fund – the LAPTRUST. We have a scheme which is under LAPFUND and LAPFUND is a State corporation. The other one is a private company. You cannot merge a private institution with a public institution. If there are problems with public institutions we resolve them. I have heard Members complain about liabilities and I agree that, probably, this fund has about Kshs25 or Kshs26 billion as liabilities that need to be settled. What has occasioned the liabilities is because of those employers or sponsors who are not remitting the funds that they deducted to the fund. If you use that as an excuse to dissolve schemes, I would tell you that no scheme will operate in this country. What if we start this one that we are now creating and again employers or sponsors refuse to remit? Are we going again to start another one and dissolve the previous one? I plead with this House to really look at these Bills critically, particularly the Government sponsored Bills. For a government to introduce a Bill in this House, it must have gone through a lot of stakeholder engagement. One problem that I had with the other Bill now that we are discussing both of them – and Hon. Speaker gave a ruling that the two will be considered somehow – I want to say that in the other Bill, even the way of funding the activities and operations of the other Bill, and Hon. Atandi has mentioned it and eloquently put it, you cannot charge a percentage of members’ contributions for administration and you pay that to employees. You will encourage laziness because then these people will just sit there and start eating members’ and sponsors’ contributions without growing the fund. If there is anything that must be objected is any scheme which is coming with a possibility of charging a particular percentage to the fund. I also wanted to say that what you need to do if there is an existing institution or if you have an existing organisation is to transition it. In fact, in my view, LAPFUND is a parastatal. For you to dissolve a parastatal you have to come out clearly on the grounds and they must be convincing. So, the best thing to do if you want to create a bigger parastatal, a merged parastatal or a more efficient parastatal, is you transition the one that exists and provide safeguards in law to encourage it to deliver. So, those are my preliminary and opening remarks where I disagree with the Chair of the Departmental Committee on Finance and Planning. I have looked at their Report and it is a little different from what he is actually saying. I do not know why. If you look at their Report, to me, it is very clear. It is being persuaded by stakeholders’ presentations on this The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}