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{
    "id": 862301,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/862301/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 331,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Sakaja",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13131,
        "legal_name": "Johnson Arthur Sakaja",
        "slug": "johnson-arthur-sakaja"
    },
    "content": "Our Committee has conducted several tours across the country. All the county government workers unions that we met had one complaint. They said that many of their counterparts, who have retired, cannot access their pension and many have died before accessing their pensions. Many of them are busy in the streets of Nairobi struggling to get an audience for them to get their hard earned money. They are people who have worked for years and served our municipal councils, town councils and county governments. The excuse that the governors have been using in many cases for not paying and not remitting is that there is no legal framework. When we went to the coast counties; Kwale, Kilifi, Tana River and Mombasa, they said that they have been told that the only impediment to them having a legislative framework is the Senate. The Senate exists to protect the interests of county governments, counties and to a large extent the staff who are within the counties. It is true that many counties owe these institutions money. In fact, some counties are doing bet swaps. In Nairobi, Mariakani Estate has been swapped with some of the amounts owed to LAPFUND and all other estates are being swapped in a process. We, as Senate, want to audit that process and understand it. We want to know whether those swaps are per the real value of the debt and assets being swapped. In many cases, the residents are not happy with that new arrangement and new landlords. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, some of the issues in our deliberations, as alluded to by the Senate Majority Leader, include the issue of an internal versus corporate administrator. One of the versions of the Bill that had been dealt with had provided for a corporate administrator that is a private entity; a limited company that this House and the Auditor-General cannot audit. May be the Snr. Counsel and the Senate Minority Leader, Sen. Orengo can give me some advice on this where the certificate number of a private company is provided and the company is known, how can we legislate for it to be in charge of public funds and yet it cannot be audited by the Auditor-General and this House? Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, on top of it, the provision is that three percent of the total fund - right now we are talking about more than Kshs60 billion - shall be for administration. Three percent of Kshs60 billion is close to Kshs2 billion. That amount is what will be used for administration. This is such that if less is spent, the rest becomes profit to a private entity. The Committee did not agree with that. We hold a very strong view against that. That was the previous Certified Permanent Secretaries (CPS) Bill. That is what some of the stakeholders were pushing for, that, that private company be the one that manages this on behalf of the county government workers. That would be irresponsible for us, as a House, to allow. We want accountability. That is why there are several levels of accountability provided for within this law. In addition to that, what we want to do is to bring these schemes that are competing together. Today, when you hold a function with county governments, you will see a tent of LAPTRUST and LAPFUND. It is like they are hawking retirement benefits arrangements. They are competing to get this and that. Some say they have more people and others say they have more than Kshs20 billion or Kshs32 billion, that they have a certain number of counties with them and so on. It has become a market. We want to bring stability and order into the pensions sector by creating one institution and bringing them together. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}