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"id": 206264,
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Munya",
"speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister, Office of the President",
"speaker": {
"id": 279,
"legal_name": "Joseph Konzolo Munyao",
"slug": "joseph-munyao"
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"content": "The Bill, specifically, defines what organised crime is. All you require is three people who come together in a structured manner, and with an intention to commit crime of whatever nature. So, that becomes an organised crime group and the law provides the framework within which such groups will be dealt with. If you look at the characteristics of those organised criminal groups--- You can identify them through their characteristics. First of all, they operate within a long period of time. They come together, get organised and operate over a long period of time. They are also eratical in nature. They have structures that are eratical. They have leaders. They have cells. So, they are organised erratically. They are also, kind of, disciplined. They have their own values and discipline structures. They also have their own training. They train themselves and, most of the time, they also have ideologies. They are ideological in nature. They promote certain ideologies, when they are promoting crime. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, most of the times, all that is intended to help them to accumulate capital. Once they accumulate capital through extortion, levying fees from people and whatever other means, they invest that money. Sometimes, they seek political protection by recruiting people who are powerful in the society to be members. That is aimed at giving them covert protection and, sometimes, they use violence to intimidate people who may disagree or want to stop their activities. So, those are the characteristics of those groups that this law intends to deal with. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, it is important to know that organised criminal gangs are a danger to our society. They do not only impact negatively on our safety as the society, but also on our economy. They impact negatively on health and the well-being of our society by promoting crime. Secondly, they also infringe on the fundamental rights of citizens and, especially, the disadvantaged citizens like children, women, and physically challenged. Most of the time, they abduct children so that their parents can pay ransoms to the organised criminal gangs. They also rape women. Since they get money without working for it, they also distort our economy and discourage investments. They do not want to work. If they can sit somewhere and organise characters to go and bring them money - making them wealthy without sweating - why would they work? That distorts our economy and discourages people from working and earning a living. It destroys our social fabric. That is why we need to have such a law to deal with such kind of situations. I have already alluded to the fact that, the reason why this law has been brought up is because the existing legal framework does not effectively deal with organised crime and criminal group activities. That problem is also compounded by the fact that, it is usually difficult to prove that one belongs to a criminal group, without that person being directly involved in actual criminal activities. There are members of those gangs who do not get involved directly. They mainly organise crime from very far and direct the activities of criminal groups. They give leadership to those criminal groups. But they, themselves, would never get directly involved. That is why the existing legal framework was not able to, adequately, deal with them. However, the current Bill, once it is passed, will deal with those groups at whatever level. If you are involved in the actual activities of a criminal gang, this law will deal with you. If you are aiding and abetting those criminal activities, this law will deal with you. If you are providing leadership from a distance, this law will deal with you. If you are assisting them to invest their money, and you have a symbiotic relationship with them in the sense that when they earn their money, they bring it to you so that you August 30, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 3625 can invest it on their behalf, this law will deal with you. This law also goes further than just taking you to court, jailing you and giving you penalties. It also provides for recovery of property; seizure of properties that have been acquired through organised criminal activities. This will ensure that nobody in our society will be allowed to thrive and benefit from proceeds of organised crime. So, this is a far-reaching Bill that will help us combat organised crime. But, more importantly, it will also help us set a framework for us to co-operate with other countries. That is because most organised gangs are now trans-national. They do not just operate in Kenya. They have tentacles in our neighbouring countries and across the seas. Drug trafficking networks, for instance, are not national. They operate across the borders. If you do not have laws that will help you to track them from wherever they are and have them extradited back to the country to face the law--- Or give help so that they can face the law from wherever they are---The law now provides that you can get evidence from wherever you are, record it and use it in another country for the purposes of having members of those organised gangs convicted. That is the other very important aspect of this very key legislation. It is giving us teeth to reach across our borders to deal with whoever is involved in organised crime. There are provisions for extraditing those criminals. There are also provisions of extraditing them from Kenya and take them to other countries where they have committed crimes to face the law. The other important provision of this law is dealing with those who subvert justice and make it impossible for law enforcement officers to deal with organised gangs. The other important provision of this Act is dealing with those who subvert justice, or make it impossible for law enforcement officers to deal with those organized gangs by, for example, intimidating witnesses or police officers involved in tracking down members of organized crime. It also involves those disclosing information of the activities of the law enforcement officers, who are investigating those organized gangs. If you behave in any way as to suggest that you are preventing the law enforcement officers from dealing with this organized crime, then you also become a criminal and the law deals with you. The law also sets the penalties for members of those gangs, which include jail terms, ranging from ten years, 14 years to life imprisonment, depending on the level of participation. So, this is a very important legislation that the House needs to consider, and pass so that we could go on with the reforms of trying to make our law enforcement agencies work better, and have the necessary legal infrastructure to deal with crime that has been ravaging our country. With those few remarks, I beg to second."
}