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"id": 1626192,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1626192/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Oketch Gicheru",
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"content": "Majority Leader. He looked annoyed when you raised the issue of fare. Although he is smiling, he is burning in the inside, it seems like he has gambled a lot with fare. On a more serious note, let me just share my thoughts on this gambling issue. Right from the start, I want to say that I totally oppose it for a variety of reasons. I was in the mediation team and was clear that this is something that we should not entertain in our country. Gambling happens in the context of a society. Every society has different challenges with how gambling manifests in it. A democracy as strong as the United States of America had a serious gambling issue in the last 20 years. Despite the fact that the United States is a 200 years’ democracy, they have struggled with the issue of gambling. There are a number of vices that come with gambling that cannot be commensurate with the benefits that come with it, whatsoever. In fact, in 2018, I had just left the United States of America, two years before that, when the conversation about gambling was going on strongly. In 2018, there was a Supreme Court decision that declared sports gambling, in Mafia versus the National Collegiate Athletics Association, unconstitutional. This was a case that was looking at sports gambling and the vices that it was bringing among young people in the United States of America. The United States of Ameria has a city, Las Vegas, where you can go and gamble, and some sort of regulations that are within states that allows for resources from gambling, to enable those states to raise some revenues without necessarily adding more taxes on people, and then do specific services to those states. For instance, where you find originals who are in the United States of America, like the Red Indians, whose communities might have been left behind in some inequality issues around economic development that are happening in the United States. You might find that some gambling might be allowed in those quarters just so that you can raise resources to enable them deal with those services that their communities need. Other than that, the overall issues of gambling become very complex to manoeuvre, even in advanced economies that can monitor those vices, like the United States of America. Mr Temporary Speaker, Sir, the question is, this particular mediated version is heavy on the opportunity for our Government to raise taxes. However, this is what you call regressive taxation. Regressive taxation is where the amount of money you will be able to collect practically from an activity such as gambling will continue dwindling. However, since you have given it an element of law to exist, the amounts that are being earned from that vice by people who have invested in it will continue to be abnormal in terms of their exponential growth. Therefore, you can never use gambling as a place to target tax revenue. If you allow, it has negative externality. When you allow it to happen in your economy, you cannot control where the revenues are going to come for the owners of those businesses. So, it goes without saying that other vices that are going to be there will always cost the Government more in terms of dealing with them. Mr Temporary Speaker, Sir, if you allow gambling and, for instance, you are making Kshs4 billion in taxation, for purposes of conversation, on an industry that makes approximately Kshs800 billion, and you are only taxing Kshs4 billion because it is regressive, then, while you are doing that, you find a society where young people are not The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."
}