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"id": 215045,
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Dr. Khalwale",
"speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for East African Community",
"speaker": {
"id": 170,
"legal_name": "Bonny Khalwale",
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"content": " Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir. I would like to commend the Minister of State for Administration and National Security for the efforts he demonstrated during the chaos that we had recently, in the name of Mungiki . Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, having observed how our Ministers work in this country, I have no doubt that Mr. Michuki is probably the only one who has enough nerve to face that kind of challenge. Therefore, while contributing to this Vote, I wish to support the amount of money that we have given his Ministry. If the Budget could have allowed, I would have requested that we give this Ministry more money because of the importance of security. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, an item in the Printed Estimates has attracted my eye. That is something called \"Kshs23.5 million\" that has been set aside for national celebrations. Through my experience over the last few years in this country, I have realized that, that money is well spent at the provincial and district levels. But when it comes to the divisional level, some of the District Officers (DOs), because they are not given part of that money, they end up having \"kangaroo courts\", whereby they punish the ordinary class of people by collecting money to meet the expenses of national day celebrations. I want to urge the Permanent Secretary in this Ministry to write a circular to all DOs, especially those in Kakamega, that they should not have those \"Kangaroo courts\" in the pretext of supporting national day celebrations. The money is right here and I have voted for it. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I have a second item that I want to mention. That is the role of the Provincial Administration in the general elections. We have given them money. This is the year of the general elections. We are hoping that part of that money is not going to be routed into mobilising the Provincial Administration, so that some of the parties that will not be politically correct at the time of the general elections are harassed by the Provincial Administration. I say that with a very sad experience that I had in my constituency during the just concluded by-election, when the DO and two of my chiefs literally became youth-wingers and tried to help one of the political parties to win that by-election. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, probably, if the Minister could use his intelligence, he would find that the DO of Ikolomani is sometimes referred to as the \"divisional chairman of NARC-Kenya\". Those are some of the things that spoil the image of the Government. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, again, when you look at these Printed Estimates, there is a huge amount of money that has been given to NSIS. It is so huge that it even supersedes some of the money that we have given to some Ministries. I want to urge the Minister and the Permanent July 10, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 2379 Secretary to ensure that, that money is put to good use in terms of gathering intelligence. I cannot believe that a gang of over 30 people can arrange for a whole one week - sometimes two or three weeks - to actually raid a village in Murang'a and that escapes the NSIS. It simply means that somebody is sleeping on his job. With proper gathering of intelligence, the NSIS can preempt those kind of calamities. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I also expect the NSIS to have the capacity, based on all this money, to gather intelligence on banking fraud. Banking fraud is a major discouragement to the growth of the economy of this country. Earlier on in this House, I spoke about Equity Bank and the possibility of that bank going under with the hard-earned savings of poor members of the public running into millions. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, Dr. Mwiria actually challenged me that I was talking from a position of ignorance. I want to assure my colleague that, when some of us speak in this House, we speak because we know what we are talking about. Probably, the NSIS should tell Kenyans why one of the top officers at Equity Bank was a finance manager with Trade Bank. That same officer was the one who was actually advising Mr. Kassim before he disappeared with billions of shillings belonging to members of the public at Trade Bank. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, when this officer at Equity Bank moved from Trade Bank, he went there and became a shareholder of shares worth over Kshs200 million. Considering that this man is only 42 years old and considering that the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) puts a limit of 5 per cent shareholding by an employee of a bank, and this man has up to 30 per cent of the holding, is that not enough for the National Security Intelligence Service (NSIS) to ask the CBK or the Ministry of Finance to find out what is going on at that bank? The same man was adversely mentioned in the Goldenberg scandal but that does not seen to disturb anybody. As if that is not enough, the same man holds shares at Equity Bank which run into billions of shillings. He has done it in a very clever way, whereby he has used nominees who are employees as secretaries. His secretary has shares worth Kshs1.6 billion at Equity Bank. If that is not a fraud in the offing, when will NSIS take action?"
}