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{
    "id": 909861,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/909861/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 628,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Garissa Township, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Aden Duale",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 15,
        "legal_name": "Aden Bare Duale",
        "slug": "aden-duale"
    },
    "content": "power to make the budget, must find out why this is the case. Accounting officers who are responsible must be penalised. The issue of pending bills is a major problem facing this country. Suppliers and contractors in our country are closing down their businesses, taking loans from financial institutions and paying with interest, and yet they are not being paid for their services. The Government cannot keep their money in an open-ended time frame. Going forward, we must amend the Public Procurement Act and ensure that when you supply goods and services like in the private sector, you are paid within 60, 90 or 120 days. The Government cannot keep suppliers and contractors’ money for two or three years. This is making the people of Kenya and particularly the small-medium business people to become poor. The same goes to county governments. I want to challenge the Controller of Budget from the Floor of this House that we are aware that the 47 county governments had a pending bill of Kshs92 billion. When the Auditor-General went out to validate the pending bills, he only validated an amount of Kshs50 billion and said Kshs42 billion is non-existent. Those are the projects governors use during campaigns by just offering letters. We now want to pay the Kshs50 billion, which was incurred by the previous governors because the current governors do not want to pay any bills from the previous governor. I am telling the Controller of Budget that when releasing money to the contractors and service providers in the counties, they should be paid directly and not through the governors. We are aware that internet banking, which the Controller of Budget uses to send money to the Central Bank, when it gets to the county governments, they pay different people other than those shown on the internet banking. I am telling the good Controller of Budget to be very careful when paying county governments pending bills. She might end up paying county governments and they pay ghost workers and projects. That is why the Senate should come in. It is their business to protect counties. We have a problem with the Division of Revenue Bill and that is the only entry point of the Senate in the whole budget-making process. They do not get involved in the Finance Bill or any amendments. They were given by the Supreme Court an entry into the budget-making process because they were not to be involved. They got this through an opinion of the Supreme Court because it is not yet a ruling. Their role is county revenue allocation when we send the block amount to counties based on the Commission of Revenue Allocation (CRA) parameters. The Senate must oversight what is going on in the counties. With those many remarks, I want to thank the Chair of the Budget and Appropriations Committee together with Hon. Makali, Hon. Mbadi and many other competent Members, for ensuring that the integrated Financial Year 2018/19 Supplementary Estimates is before the House. Pursuant to the provisions of the Constitution and the PFM Act of 2012, I now wish to second. I ask the House to take a little time to pass this so that the Budget Office can prepare the Appropriation Bill overnight. This will ensure that tomorrow, we can deal with this matter and ask the President to assent it into law. After that money can be withdrawn from the Consolidated Fund as early as Friday. I beg to second."
}