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{
    "id": 1161262,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1161262/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 101,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Olekina",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 407,
        "legal_name": "Ledama Olekina",
        "slug": "ledama-olekina"
    },
    "content": "accountable manner. It also makes it difficult for the Auditor-General or the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) to carry out their work. The amendments that I am proposing today will bring discipline, accountability and protect the integrity of this country from money laundering. These amendments will make it easy for anyone to run a campaign and not have to be born from wealth families. If you read the Elections Campaign Financing Act as it is, it calls for the Auditor- General to audit every single candidate in this country. For example, how and where they get their money and who financed them. You know very well that even in this House, we have got accounts for the 47 counties that are yet to be considered by this House and the Auditor-General is still lagging behind. So, will the Auditor-General stop auditing Government agencies and counties, then start to audit each and every candidate? I will go straight to the point. I do not wish to belabour on this matter because these are very simple issues. I believe that once my colleagues go through them, they will support. The object of this Bill is to make provision for the IEBC to regulate the amount of money that may be spent by a candidate or on behalf of a candidate, or a political party in respect of any election. Madam Deputy Speaker, I will skim through and raise the issues that I have proposed that we do away with. If you look at Section 2 of the Elections Campaign Financing Act, it is referred to us the principal Act. We want to amend it by deleting the following items- (1) Expenditure account; (2) Expenditure Committee; and, (3) Expenditure report. Today, if you look at State agencies that require private entities to report to them, they do not require you to submit to them audited financial statement. They require you to submit to them quarterly reports on where you get your money from. I will give a very good example of the Communication Commission of Kenya (CCK). It calls for reports to be given to it by every media house. It does not require them to submit an audit or send the Auditor-General to audit those accounts. They do it on a quarterly basis, so that it encourages accountability. Some of the proposals that I am proposing will allow each political party to prepare their donor list, source of money and put in discipline. In the event that the IEBC suspects that there is some fraud somewhere, that is the only time that they can call for an audit. However, the way the Act is, it is calling for the Auditor-General to audit accounts of every candidate in this country. Today, we read in the news that one of the political parties has 5,700 candidates. Maybe, another one will have about 6,000 candidates. So, will it be humanly possible for the Auditor-General, who is still lagging behind, to audit over 11,000 candidates? So, the proposal that I am making is to make it simple such that each political party is tasked with the responsibility of preparing their financial statements and records properly and submitting them to the IEBC in line with the Political Parties Act which we recently amended, on a quarterly basis."
}