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"id": 1076240,
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"speaker_name": "Kathiani, WDM-K",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Robert Mbui",
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"content": "frustrate the cases. At the end of the day, there are very few convictions out of all these criminal cases. That is why people continue to steal. They realise that very little will be done. Maybe the money they steal is also used to buy justice. It is a shame. I am also aware of cases to do with the white elephants where Kenyan taxpayers' money is used to pay contractors when nothing has been done. A case in point is the dams in the Rift Valley, namely, Arror Dam and Kimwarer Dam. I think there is probably a case coming up about them, but I will not say much. I think it is also in courts. Clearly, when we hear of a situation where money has been paid to the tune of billions, but not a single equipment was in sight, in fact, the land itself has not even been acquired for the purpose of a project, it is really a shame. Therefore, I think as a nation we need to ask ourselves where the rain started beating us. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, I read a book on why nations fail. I was not reading it because of Kenya's case, but I was just curious. It is called the Origins of Power, Prosperity andPoverty . In that book, they give comparisons of two places. One city called Nogales which is at the border of the United States of America (USA) and Mexico where part of the USA people is affluent, their income is better, they live better, their standards of education are higher and even their life expectancy is higher. On the lower side, just a fence across, everything changes to the negative. When they talk about the history of that region, it is because of the way they were colonised. The Americans being colonised by the English and then South America being colonised by the Spaniards and how the systems were set up in the southern part and the northern part of America. That shows that institutions set up help in ensuring that lives of the people are improved. Again, they talk about the comparison between North and South Korea. They share the same geographical region, the same culture the same almost everything, but when it comes to prosperity, one nation is extremely rich and the other one is extremely poor. Again, just a border between one country and the other. Therefore, I think we need to borrow from those countries that have succeeded. We have the resources. There are countries without resources that are richer than us. We have the manpower and the intelligence. Why do we allow ourselves to be killed by corruption, a simple monster called corruption, and remain a poor nation so many years after independence? We just celebrated 58 years after Madaraka and here we are talking about corruption. The Report is full of corruption cases. That is a Report that should be tabled and people go to jail tomorrow, but the court system is independent. The judges can choose to say: “We will prosecute or we will not or there is not enough evidence or there is enough.” Unfortunately, we only have a role as one of the arms of the Government. However, we will speak up. Allow us to say this so that the courts can hear us and know that we are also bitter. When things go wrong and corruption becomes bad, it is Parliament that is vilified. When we go for functions in the communities, because we stand in podiums and speak, we are told we are the thieves. However, those thieves are probably not us. Those that should jail them are not jailing them. We can only point out their errors. We can only point out the mistakes they have made. Therefore, it is important that we ensure that this is done. Finally, the Auditor-General does an excellent job, but there is one area that I would like them to look at. Many are the times when they come up with what we call audit queries. Audit queries are questions asked about the expenditure of public funds. Unfortunately, before they get the reports, the auditors leak out audit queries. Many are the times when audit queries can even be explained and answered. Before the answers come, the Auditor-General's officers leak out those reports and make it look like there is a corruption scandal. Sometimes cases are started too early when people think there is money lost yet the questions asked have not been answered. Documentation to answer all these queries takes time to be put together. You walk in as an auditor The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}