Parliamentary Public Debt And Privatization Committee Meets Westminister Foundation For Democracy, Discuss Public Debt Oversight
Parliamentary Public Debt And Privatization Committee Meets Westminister Foundation
By PSCU
The Public Debt and Privatization Committee led by Abdi Shurie of Balambala constituency yesterday met with officials from the Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD), to deliberate on how Parliament can effectively undertake public debt oversight.
This comes at a time when 22 African countries are in debt distress or at high risk; with Kenya, Sierra Leone and Gambia being categorized as high risk.
According Mr. James Muraguri, the CEO of the Institute of Public Finance, more than 30 per cent of budget spending and about 60 per cent of revenue goes to debt servicing.
“The high debt levels have raised the risk of default forcing Kenya to shift to multilateral loans that come with painful conditions,” noted Muraguri.
Franklin De Vrieze, WFD Head of Practice, took members through the role of Parliament in public debt programming, which include, debt oversight through the budget cycle by deliberating the pre-budget statement in the formulation stage, and the annual state budget in the approval phase; and Parliamentary ratification of loan agreements, which will deter imprudent borrowing without the appropriate Government accountability.
In addition to that, Parliament would need to regularly update the debt management legal framework, to oversight State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs), by advocating for a Public Investments Committee to oversee administration of SOEs, to ensure they are functioning properly and not accumulating debt.
Finally, government should submit an annual borrowing plan and annual debt report to Parliament on debt management and debt management strategy, outlining plans for the upcoming fiscal year, and summarizing the previous year’s activities and follow-up audit reports on public debt.
Further, Parliament can enhance transparency and accountability by adopting a single integrated management law, which will provide strategic direction to borrowing decisions and specify roles of the institutions involved in debt management.
The committee was also oriented on the dimensions and scope of WFDs Public Debt Management Assessment Toolkit (PDMAT).
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