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{
    "id": 1348017,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1348017/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 151,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "seen how addictive smoking can be. I am a teetotaller and a confessed tea addict. I cannot leave my house without taking a sip of Kenyan tea. Some people are pushing me to say Kericho tea, but I said Kenyan tea. There is a new saying that no conversation is complete, or subject too difficult that it cannot be settled over a good cup of Kenyan tea. My tea addiction is a good thing. I know what addictions can do. You become dysfunctional when you have not taken your usual drink. Unlike tea addiction, gambling addiction comes at a huge cost, not just to the addict but to their families as well. Gambling addicts spend money meant for their children’s school fees and medication on gambling. Most Members will tell you that there are certain people in their constituencies who wake up in the morning and go to their local shopping centres to gamble the whole day. They will be at street corners and at their shopping centres waiting for their Waheshimiwa, Members of County Assemblies (MCAs) and Members of Parliament to pass by so that they can ask for handouts not for anything productive but to gamble with hopes that they will make it in life. We must ensure that we discourage our youth from pursuing unproductive economic activities like gambling and instead encourage them to pursue more economically productive activities. We will not achieve that by lowering taxes on gambling revenue, which will make it very easy for them to gamble. The other argument I saw in the presentations by industry players is that once we raise taxes on gambling in the country, people will start gambling online. If governments around the world can stop people from using WhatsApp, how difficult is it for a government to stop people from gambling online? It is possible. You do not even need to stop them. Tax them when they gamble online. They will have to remit money at the end of the day, whether through PayPal or M-Pesa, depending on the platform that they are gambling on. It does not matter whether they are gambling on a platform based in the United Kingdom (UK), the United States of America (USA) or South Africa as long as they remit money. The Government can institute mechanisms through which such a person can pay tax. Those are some of the new innovations that I was hoping the Departmental Committee on Sports and Culture would come up with. Since tax matters are better handled by the Departmental Committee on Finance and National Planning, I hope the Committee will be innovative during consideration of the next Finance Bill. The Departmental Committee on Finance and National Planning and the National Treasury must begin to think of how they can tax individuals who gamble online. The Government should also get a cut of the winnings that such individuals get, so that we handle the defeatist argument that if we raise our taxes, people will go and gamble online in companies outside Kenya. We will still be getting tax money even from those gambling outside Kenya. I said I do not want to dwell so much on this Bill because we said a lot yesterday on the Lottery Bill. I really want to plead with Members to help us pass this Bill because it is dealing with a known national vice that is now in Kenya. Gambling is just not for the young. I have seen around the country very elderly men and women who spend all their time gambling. Yesterday, I said our radio stations, especially the vernacular stations, have made it a norm to promote gambling after every two sentences that they make. I hope the measures to control the advertisement of gambling companies in this Bill will come to fruition when we pass this Bill so that Kenyans are not encouraged to gamble by bombarding them with advertisements on television and vernacular radio stations. That is how the very elderly are roped in. They are made to believe that the easiest way to make half a million shillings is by texting their phone number to some radio stations. These stations are collecting billions of shillings. Yesterday, I said it was being reported that most of our mainstream media stations are making more money from gambling than from their core business of broadcast or even from advertisement of corporates. We must protect our people from being taken advantage of. Unfortunately, it is not me and you who gamble although I know – without naming names – in the last Parliament we had one Member who was an addict. 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"
}