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{
    "id": 941694,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/941694/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 610,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. (Prof.) Ongeri",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 124,
        "legal_name": "Samson Kegeo Ongeri",
        "slug": "samson-ongeri"
    },
    "content": "However, considering the interest of this nation and what it stands to lose and considering what we have invested in this nation; in the people, infrastructure, education and agriculture, and I do not see any chance of revival of all these important sectors unless we recollect and find out how we can heal this debacle that has beset before us today in this House of the Senate. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the only suggestion I was going to make is that even when we say ‘yes’ to this Motion, the National Treasury should come before this House - now that they know that as Senate we matter on issues of public debt; they should not always depend on the National Assembly to pass the money Bills and be satisfied, because they are running into a crisis - once we have given this okay, and tell us how the schedules of borrowing will benefit this whole country, rather than one segment of the country. That is the cry of those who are opposing it. Their worry is where their county has been factored in, with this additional borrowing. In addition to that, it makes sense that when you have expensive commercial loans, the only sensible way of doing business is to restructure those loans. Even those of us who have bank loans, when we run into difficulties of repayments, we go back for restructuring. I heard somebody saying earlier on that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) are not involved in restructuring. Of course, they are involved in restructuring. In fact, the first thing that the WB and the IMF do, when they go to a country to assess its economic viability, they would say: “Would you like to have your loans restructured in a manner which is sustainable?” That is why we have sustainability conferences of the United Nations (UN). Sustainable development is all about restructuring of our economies so that they are sustainably fit for human use and consumption. We cannot run away from restructuring because it is part of the story of the world economy. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to plead, because I was going to vote ‘no’, however, in the interest of this nation, knowing that it has the capacity and the capability in the new dispensation that we have seen today, of reawakening its economy to a much higher level than what we are seeing today, we then give them yet another chance. We shall have another occasion to debate on this public debt; this is not the first and the last. We will come back again to give a score card on how this money has been utilized. We will then be able to assess, through the programs and projects that have been carried out through this borrowed money, how they have benefited the people and the society. If they would not have benefited them, we should then take a decisive action on which way to go."
}