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"id": 855038,
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"speaker_name": "Sen. Mwaura",
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"legal_name": "Isaac Maigua Mwaura",
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"content": "who has been doing business there, relocate to? I can proudly say that I am a product of that area, because it is my home area. However, people are treated badly as a result of an investor from China who has made money from I do not know where. He comes under the aegis of PPPs to displace people, make his money and go away. We do not even know how the project will take off because all these things are below the radar. I can bet that the only person who may know what is happening is Gov. Ferdinand Waititu, who seems to be doing well. Therefore, these are some of the things that we need to discuss openly. When there is PPP, what are the facilities that the Government is supposed to provide? What are the concessions? What is the value of land with regards to this project? Finally, what do we do with the people? The issue of PPPs is predicated upon the return on investment. When a person uses their revenues, they are recommitted. When they borrow, they have to look at the interest rate. However, the question is what is the return on the investment; not particularly on the investor, but on the people who are supposed to be the beneficiaries of these projects? Will the fees, which will be raised in this project, be affordable? What are the human rights issues around some of these things? Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I am the Vice Chairperson of the Committee, and we discussed this extensively. Therefore, no amount of money should be put by Government on PPP projects. However, that has not been the case because it sometimes looks like a cost sharing situation. A good example is Thika Road, which was funded by the Government of Kenya (GoK), the Africa Development Bank (ADB) and The Chinese Exim Bank. These are gray areas which we need to unpackage as we go to the Committee of the Whole, so that we do not leave anything to conjecture. If we do so, there will definitely be some form of malfeasance, because this is big business. For example, when a person is building a facility of Kshs2.7 billion, has the project been costed well so that it reduces the number of years the investor is supposed to recoup their money? I am sure one of you may have seen some rather ambitious investor in China who recently wanted to buy Nairobi at the cost of Kshs30 billion and do fabrications around. Therefore, we also need to look at the issue of relations because it is about the dignity of a country. We cannot just be people who are looking left, right and center for whoever is availing money for investment. We cannot be that cheap. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, from the projects that we have - which are quite ambitious – everybody is scrambling for a piece of Kenya. There is a reason why we are needed in Washington; Theresa May with her Brexit is visiting and Xi Jinping is always visiting. Therefore, we have to know the value we are getting, because everybody‟s analysis is that we have a very educated population and we are not very complicated. However, these kind of engagements reek of development corruption, as elucidated well by Ronald Reagan. We have to interrogate them, and the best way to go about it is by having a framework that speaks to each and every procedure. This is not to impede the The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}