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{
    "id": 238487,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/238487/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 168,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "[Mr.Raila]",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 195,
        "legal_name": "Raila Amolo Odinga",
        "slug": "raila-odinga"
    },
    "content": "apologise to Kenyans and neither has the President seen it fit to dismiss him from service for disgracing the Government. My friend, long time colleague and a comrade in arms, hon. Wamwere, is in this Ministry. I hope that when he stands to speak, he is going to support this Motion. He knows very well how much him and I have suffered because of the kind of laws that we have in this country. In fact, I feel sorry for hon. Wamwere for sometimes having to defend this Government that is indefensible in some of the criminal activities that it gets involved with. I was happy that he was able to come October 18, 2006 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 2993 out strongly in the issue of the mamlukis. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we need to go the route that Malaysia went. Dr. Mahathir was able to move Malaysia from a poor struggling Third World country to a First World country in 20 years. In as far as the issue of information is concerned, he came up with a system that was completely transparent in whatever the Government was doing. For example, the tendering process was being done in a very transparent manner. You should advertise, negotiate with the contractors and publish in the media who has won the tender and why it has been awarded. At the moment, the reason why this country cannot move forward in as far as infrastructural development is concerned is the system through which these things are done. Before you know it, somebody has rushed to court. Then you discover that the Attorney-General has some of the information that you do not have, another part is in the Ministry and the rest is in the court. The Government keeps on losing a lot of money because of this. It is important that this Motion be moved by a private hon. Member, like my colleague here, so that we can have an input into the Bill. Then we can factor into it things that will enable us to move to the 21st Century properly and be in tandem with the rest of the world. Information should not be kept secret. Information, as it has been rightly said, is power. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, during the Nazi regime in Germany, very many people either lost or had to save their lives by merely getting some advance information. If you got advance information, you were able to do something to protect yourself. If you did not, you ended up in the concentration camps or you were just shot dead. Information, therefore, is power. Lack of information is what created the Mobutu Sese Sekos and the Kamuzu Bandas of this world, Ngwazi of Malawi, Papa Doc Duvalier of Haiti, the Shi'ites of Iran and Jean-Bedel Bokassa of Central African Republic. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}