The Public Debt and Privatization Committee chaired by Hon. Abdi Shurie (Balambala) held a two-day collaborative workshop with officials from the Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD) and Institute of Public Finance (IPF) to evaluate Parliament's capacity for overseeing Public Debt Management.

During the workshop, Head of Practice Accountability at WFD, Mr. Franklin De Vrieze, emphasized the role of transparency in public debt management. He noted that, transparency will help the public to understand the goals and push the authorities to make a credible commitment to meet them, hold governments accountable, increase investors’ confidence and reduce the risk of future criticism by the public.

In addition to that, Mr. Vrieze cited the need for Parliament to approve the Debt Management Strategy, citing that it will entrench accountability and transparency in borrowing decisions, enable refinement of the strategy, build consensus among all the parties involved, and enable Parliamentary scrutiny of regular reports on the implementation of the Debt Management Strategy.

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Institute of Public Finance, Mr. James Muraguri, highlighted three key roles that Parliament can inculcate to oversight debt which include establishing a broad legal framework for public debt management, ensuring that debt management is conducted in accordance with the established legal framework, and making full disclosure on all the debt acquired and their status.

 Hon. Abdi Shurie, thanked WFD and IPF for all the insights shared during the workshop, assuring them that they will continue to engage each other, in a bid to create effective debt oversight mechanisms.