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{
    "id": 941476,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/941476/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 392,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Wetangula",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 210,
        "legal_name": "Moses Masika Wetangula",
        "slug": "moses-wetangula"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, she understands. She is not protesting. Article 2(6) of the Constitution, Kenya has signed to the East African Protocol. Article 2(6) of the Constitution says that:- “Any treaty or convention ratified by Kenya shall form part of the law of Kenya under this Constitution.” The East African Protocol says that our debt to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ratio should never exceed 50 per cent. However, we are now about to take our debt to GDP ratio to 100 per cent. That is because I asked the CS what our GDP is and even if he did not answer. We know it because it is in the public domain. Our GDP is Kshs9.8 trillion. We want to open the debt ceiling to Kshs9 trillion, which means that our GDP and debt weight will be equal. Which country does that? I do not know of any. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I urge Senators here that voting against this Motion is not going against the President, the Government or the national Treasury. We are saying, as a responsible House of Parliament, that we should defeat this Motion and follow what the budget officers advised. They advised that we should bring in a new set of regulations capping our debt ceiling to Kshs7.5 trillion, and then let us see how you behave with it. Nothing stops the CS, in another two or three months, from coming to Parliament again to justify what you have given him. He could come here and say, “I have used this money responsibly; now give me an extra opening on the ceiling.” That is not asking for too much. We have already shown, as a Government, that we have an extremely avaricious and uncontrollable appetite for borrowing. We have borrowed everywhere. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I thank the current CS because this is the first time that our Committee – where I have sat with Sen. Mutula Kilonzo Jnr. for the last seven years – we have seen a debt register of the Republic of Kenya. We have never seen it before. This debt register tells you even the mind games and the economic games that a country like China plays on Kenya. If you look at the debt register, the commercial debt from China is Kshs660 billion. The bilateral debt, or what we call concessional debt from China, is only Kshs1 billion. Do you see how China is playing on us? They are luring us into borrowing huge sums of money at commercial levels. However, when it comes to"
}