Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Muthaura grilled over government expenditure

Head of public service Francis Muthaura was on Wednesday put to task by the Public Investments Committee over government expenditure and utilization of public resources.

Muthaura who was grilled alongside finance permanent secretary Joseph Kinyua was hard put to explain to the committee chaired by Igembe South MP Mithika Linturi how decisions to privatize state corporations were arrived at as the committee expressed reservations with the process saying it was prone to abuse.

Linturi sought to know why some huge investments once largely owned by the government were sold off to unknown investors.

The committee further sought to find out the the criteria on which the government made decisions on what state corporations to privatize with members of the PIC insisting that the deals were shrouded in mystery, secrecy and malpractice.

Muthaura however refuted the allegations, saying the government's intentions were to free state corporations to the private market where they can achieve profitability.

Muthaura defended the government over the war against corruption blaming the judiciary for being a stumbling block.

He said the fight against graft cannot be won unless there were radical reforms in the judiciary including the employment of more judges to speed up the hearing of cases.

The team was also grilled on the equality of funding allocated to public universities.

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