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{
    "id": 1348075,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1348075/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 209,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Tigania West, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. (Dr) John K. Mutunga",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Speaker. I thank the Departmental Committee on Sports and Culture for coming up with the good proposals in this Bill. This legislation comes not only to regulate but also to control gambling. Gambling cuts across all age groups although the legislation appears to put an age limit. It is important to control it because it is an extremely addictive game. It has impoverished many people. You should see the levels of destitution when people are borrowing money to go and gamble. One time, there was a police roundup in my constituency. I happened to talk to the police and they told me that there were cheap Chinese machines that had infiltrated the communities and almost everyone was participating in these illegal games. The police had to get rid of the machines in order to contain the people. Gambling should be controlled and contained because it is a time-consuming activity. Therefore, we need to support our people to do productive work. It is a lazy man’s job. Lazy people engage in gambling because they do not want to work. Kenya is a working nation. I remember with a lot of nostalgia the time of the late former President Kibaki who told us to work ama wewe ni bure kabisa . We do not want to call our people bure kabisa but we are saying that people who do not want to work hard engage in that bahati nasibu . Gambling is very captivating in the sense that people seem to like it. It takes money from the poorest segment of the poor. As the Leader of the Majority Party said, we have an obligation to protect our poor people from the extortionist games. The levels of destitution are appalling. It has taken people back to poverty even those who are trying to do something and have started to earn a decent living. Let me address the issue of the 15 per cent vis-a-vis the Committee’s proposal. I listened very carefully to Hon. Basil’s contribution. We would also like it to happen a lot more. If we put 15 per cent as the levy and it dissuades the activity from happening, we will not get any revenue. People will switch to ICT based or electronic gambling and, therefore, we will lose more revenue. That is an important point that we need to consider because the Committee must 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"
}