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{
    "id": 900041,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/900041/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 377,
    "type": "other",
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "have also flagged out such cases and recommended specific sanctions against specific accounting officers. There is obviously the recurring matter of pending bills. This House must put its foot down and deal with this matter once and for all. Pending bills have a tendency of distorting the expenditures and the financial planning of the agencies in the subsequent financial year. We have to come to a decision that if we are sure that the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) has no capacity to generate or collect revenues that would be enough to support the budgets, we must scale down the budgets accordingly rather than putting a wish-list in the budget and then we end up with a situation where there are no Exchequer releases from the National Treasury. The National Treasury cannot release Exchequer if there is no revenue collected by KRA. It is a vicious cycle. It is a merry-go-round that is creating avenues for unscrupulous officers to do monkey business. As you know, these pending bills are treated as the first charge in the subsequent financial years. It is very easy for accounting officers to lump in issues as pending bills at the tail-end of the financial year with the knowledge that, come the next financial year, they will be settled automatically. Let us try to strike a balance between being too ambitious in our budgeting in terms of projections of revenues and prudence in terms of what we are sure is likely to be collected. The budget must balance. If you cannot generate enough revenues, you must borrow either locally or externally. If from the borrowings and the local revenues you cannot support the budget, scale it down. It is common sense. It is not rocket science. That is an issue that my Committee has pronounced itself on and we hope that something will be done soonest to address it once and for all. Finally, so that my colleagues can contribute to this matter, is the issue of pervasive corruption. Let me call it endemic. It is evident in a number of agencies and institutions that our Committee came into contact with. I want to plead with the relevant investigative agencies to take the Report of the PAC seriously by acting on the recommendations that are contained therein within the shortest time possible. We have, as a standard, given them three months, upon the adoption of the Report of this House, to initiate specific actions on specific issues and sometimes against specific officers. But they could do it even faster. I do not even see the reason why the investigative agencies cannot second officers to our Committee so that, as these issues arise, they can pick them even before we do our Report. This is so that we ensure that people understand that you cannot misuse and pilfer public funds and go scot free. They must be made aware that if you misuse public funds, you must pay for it. I want to be very brief and move that the House adopts this Report. I call upon my very good friend, very able and consistent Member of the Committee, the Member of Parliament (MP) for Molo, Hon. Kimani Kuria, to second."
}