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"id": 226495,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/226495/?format=api",
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"speaker_name": "Archbishop Ondiek",
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"speaker": {
"id": 354,
"legal_name": "Stephen Oluoch Ondiek",
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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I beg to second the Motion. I was one of the Members of this Committee and I used to pray very hard, so that its Members did not get corrupted, as the cases we were trying to look into contained a lot of corruption. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, my former Chairman has talked about very many things concerning corruption within Ministries. An example is the Ministry of Roads and Public Works. There is a lot of corruption in that Ministry. A road is said to have been constructed, a completion certificate issued and money paid, but when you go you find that no road that has been constructed. How do you we run a country where we keep on wasting the resources that we have? We keep on begging from outside, looking for funds to develop our country, when the little we have is being \"eaten\" by individuals. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, there is a trend I have seen in the Ministries. You find that if the Permanent Secretary is a Luo or a Kikuyu--- You will find that the Accountant-General is a Kikuyu, the Controller and Auditor-General is a Kikuyu, the Financial Secretary is a Kikuyu, and everybody else is a Kikuyu. I do not know whether this kind of a system is the best for this country. How do you control such things? These are the issues that are making many people to suspect that there is a lot of corruption in this country. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, when we investigated the Anglo Leasing scandal, I was a victim of confusion. I was forced to leave the Committee because we mentioned the truth. We summoned some officers and Ministers, but they did not attend, and somebody somewhere decided that we should leave the Committee. I was one of the victims of those circumstances. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, on the issue of failure by officers to account for revenue collected, we interviewed the Registrar of the High Court. He was unable to account for the funds collected by his officers in Coast Province and other districts in the country. One is left wondering whether the revenue collected to assist and develop this country is properly monitored and utilised. There are a lot of irregularities. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, there is a lot of outstanding imprest not surrendered by the officers. The regulations state that imprest should be surrendered by officers within 48 hours upon their arrival to their work stations. In this country, there is imprest which has not been surrendered for the last five years. That imprest amounts to millions of shillings. That is a very unfortunate state of affairs! We cannot even buy drugs in our hospitals and yet, individuals are just holding imprest. That can be dealt with administratively. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the issue of maintenance of vehicles also came up in our deliberations. We found out that fuel money, for example, is paid to certain individuals. Sometimes, that fuel is not even used by Ministry vehicles. That fuel is sold by the road-side. Nobody is prepared to account for that. We wonder what is happening in this country. This country is very rich. We have so many resources. We do not even need any donor support, if we manage our resources effectively. If this Government takes charge and controls all the resources in this country, we will not have any financial problems. We will also develop tremendously. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, our road network, for example, is in a very bad shape. Every year, we have no food. Our people are starving. We have to look for other countries to come and help us with food and yet, we have got a lot of resources. We can be self-sufficient. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, building materials fall under the Ministry of Roads 616 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES April 12, 2007 and Public Works. They buy building materials and, instead of taking them to the site, they are diverted elsewhere. Nobody is responsible for that. Nobody cares to find out whether those materials were delivered at the site and used properly. Those things stay for years without being accounting for. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the kind of corruption that we have in this country, particularly in our Civil Service, is terrible! We do not know whether we will be able to wipe it out and yet, this Government took over the running of this country on a platform of zero-tolerance to corruption. If the Government cannot wipe out corruption, I wonder whether it can do anything else. But, anyway, since their term is almost over--- I am sure in January, 2008, there will be a new government which will be accountable for the resources that we get from the public. I think things will be quite okay. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, with regard to the Ministry of Health, drugs that are supposed to be taken to our hospitals are, sometimes, sold to the patients when they are supposed to be given free of charge. Nobody is interested to find out whether those drugs are being given to the patients. Those are the kind of things that the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) should look into---"
}