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{
    "id": 1399545,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1399545/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 249,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Wambua",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13199,
        "legal_name": "Enoch Kiio Wambua",
        "slug": "enoch-kiio-wambua"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir. I am not sure what Sen. Maanzo is saying. I want to make my comments on this Bill without necessarily committing myself at this point as whether I am in support or opposed. This is for the simple reason that the Standing Committee on Justice, Legal Affairs and Human Rights has just tabled their report. We will take time to go through it and by the time we get to the Third Reading it will be clear whether this Bill merits our support or not. I will say a few things about the Bill. First, it begins by creating an obligation on an independent commission established by an Act of Parliament, The EACC Act of 2011. A commission that is deeply rooted on the supreme law, Chapter 6 on Integrity. Now that the Bill creates an obligation for a commission that is established by an Act of Parliament, what would have been easier? Perhaps to amend the EACC Act and load matters to do with conflict of interest or to come up with an independent act to deal with conflicts of interest. I will look at the report of the Committee to establish whether they have created a nexus between the EACC Act of 2011 and the proposed law. In the absence of that nexus, then we run the risk of creating confusion, by getting one law to create an obligation for another set of laws. Yesterday I followed the release of the bribery index by the EACC. I saw the Chairman and my bishop, Dr. David Oginde at pains declaring that Kenyans are bribing more and the cost of it is has also almost doubled. I saw him at pains saying that if we do not tame bribery, then corruption is going to kill us as a country. Those words coming from a respected Bishop must begin to ring a bell in the minds of all public officers and every Kenyan. I also heard him prescribe a very easy way out of this corruption problem - do not ask, do not give and do not take. If we were to then follow that prescription, perhaps we would live in a better country. Part Three, Clause 10 of the Bill makes reference to decision making or people in positions of decision making in elaborating what a conflict of interest means. I want to read it because to me it is very important. Clause 10 (1)(a)- “A public officer shall not make a decision or participate in making a decision relating to the exercise of an official power or the performance of a duty or function, if the public officer knows that in the making of the decision, the officer would be in conflict of interest”. I have read this Clause with more than passing interest, because we have just passed a law on affordable housing. If this law had been enacted before passing the affordable housing law, then perhaps the question that we would be asking ourselves is that whether persons holding public office, who have been at the centre of decision making in the affordable housing law, are conflicted or not. I want to extend that thinking a little further. Is a public officer, who is an expert in national security, working in the Ministry of Interior and National Administration or any other ministry and is paid by the Government of Kenya, conflicted if and when during his free time, he gives lectures in a university to equip young people with matters of national security?"
}