Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 1348071,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1348071/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 205,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kangundo, GDDP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Fabian Muli",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Speaker, for giving me this opportunity to add my voice to the Gambling Control Bill (National Assembly Bill No.70 of 2023) I stand to support these amendments. Different jurisprudence have defined it as a game. This is a game like another sport. I also like to take the opportunity to congratulate all the gamblers in Kenya and all over the world. Life is a gamble. Many people do not know they are gambling when they invest in businesses and so we cannot say that gambling is not part of human life. Historically, we had Russian roulette games and many more. Growing up some of us started gambling in the village and so we cannot discourage gambling. If you feel you are a man enough, wake up and gamble. What we are saying is that we need to make laws to discourage our young people from getting drunk with gambling. Gambling is a good game. We need to make good laws to guide gamblers in the game. If you feel you are man enough, go and gamble. I congratulate the Committee for coming up with this law. It will help prevent the village issues and street fights by the young boys. The amendment we need to look at when we are talking about gambling is how to attract many investors by lowering taxes. Gambling is an investment like any other. The amount of money on Schedule 4, Ksh200 million, is too much. We need more investors. We should not only let foreigners do business in our country. We need to create a good environment even for local investors. We should not only think of high-end gambling for Ksh1 million and above but also allow local businesses in the villages to gamble with Ksh50. If we say that people can only gamble with Ksh10,000, where will the startups get the Ksh200 million? I do not like the idea that we need to make money from any business. No. We need to allow people to make money and make a living. People need to enjoy life. We should create opportunities for games and different sports that people can enjoy. We need to change the fees set for this business. We should not just put fees to discourage people from investing in this industry. We need to leave it open. This industry is thriving online. I see a lot of betting for football happening online. It is not easy to have online gamblers pay taxes yet we are punishing innocent businessmen who have opened offices here in Kenya with these expensive fees. We need to be considerate when we are setting the charges. Thank you very much. As I said, I support but with amendments."
}