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{
    "id": 226534,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/226534/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 329,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Raila",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 195,
        "legal_name": "Raila Amolo Odinga",
        "slug": "raila-odinga"
    },
    "content": "That is a lot of money, particularly for a Government that came into power on the platform of zero tolerance to corruption! I, myself, became the first victim. I exchanged very bitter correspondence with my colleague when he was protecting some of these people. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, when I talked about these pending bills, before the report was released, the Chairman of the Pending Bills Committee was summoned to the Treasury in the office of the Minister, where he was confronted by two contractors whose names were adversely mentioned in the report which had not been released. He was told that these were benefactors of the Government; they funded the NARC Government and, therefore, the Government wanted their names to be removed from the report. The Chairman of the Committee left that place a very terrified person. He rang me and told me: \"I had been summoned to the Treasury and I was confronted by some of these contractors. I was told to remove their names from the report. What do I do?\" I told him to do nothing of the sort. I told him to produce the report the way he had written it and I will then know what to do with it. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the report was presented to me and I invited Mr. John Githongo, who was then the Permanent Secretary in charge of Ethics and Governance. I also invited the Press to be present when the report was being handed over to me. To my surprise, phone calls were made as to why I should allow the Press to be present when a document which was supposed to be a secret Government document was being presented to me. I said that there was nothing secret about it because I had appointed this Committee to work on behalf of the members of the public. I said that our Government wanted to do things differently from KANU. We wanted to be transparent in everything that we were doing. This created a lot of anxiety and animosity within the Government system. When I presented this report to the Cabinet, this Committee was appointed, which was never intended to complete any work, but to cover up. The report of this Committee has not been produced, just like the report of the Committee which was inquiring into the Artur brothers or the mamluki saga. You heard yesterday that, that report cannot be released for security reasons. I know that the report on these pending bills cannot also be released for security reasons. My charges are that this Government lives and thrives on corruption. It cannot correct itself. The only way that Kenyans can deal with this Government properly is to vote it out and vote into power, a Government of the Orange Democratic Movement. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}