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"speaker_name": "Mr. ole Ntimama",
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"legal_name": "William Ronkorua ole Ntimama",
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"content": "However, the poor people are not benefiting. How do you match the improvement of the economy with 67 per cent of the people in this country being recorded as living below the poverty line? How do you think the economy of this country has improved with the amount of unemployment that is going on now? Like I said and I want to repeat that the only people who benefitted are the super- rich, those who have stolen and the people who have been part of the scandals that have been going on in this country. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, in a way, I think trade is a very important business to follow up. We must say that, that is where we make profit and investments. The Minister for Trade and Industry has been doing a good job. I wish to congratulate him for standing firm on the issue of Uchumi Supermarkets. The collapse of Uchumi Supermarkets is one of the biggest corporate scandals in this country. We know very well that players in this scandal are people who sunk some other parastatals which were viable and profit-making. The same people who mismanaged these parastatals, caused the collapse of Uchumi Supermarkets. The Minister has done very well by using Government funds to rescue Uchumi Supermarkets. Uchumi Supermarkets belong to this country. They belong to our local people. Some people are trying to sink Uchumi Supermarkets to establish another company elsewhere, so that they continue to \"eat\" and \"eat\". What are we doing to apprehend these people? We must see them being taken to court immediately. We must see their assets being seized. We have been hearing a lot about assets of these people being seized by the Government. If we let these people to continue stealing and do nothing to them, it will be a very serious matter. Mr. Minister, you should continue with your efforts to net those involved in the collapse of Uchumi Supermarkets. You have the support of the people of this country. You have the support of the ordinary people and employees of Uchumi Supermarkets. So, you must move on, otherwise the Uchumi Supermarkets saga will just be another story similar to other stories that we have had in this country. We will not listen to stories any more. We want to see people who have stolen public resources facing the law. These are the people who have stolen from other state corporations and now they want to \"kill\" Uchumi Supermarkets. We know these people; everybody knows them. They enjoy their wealth by driving sports cars all over to show us how they have succeeded through stealing. These are some of the things that should be tackled. We must have credible people in this country. Regional trade is another important issue. I do not know how we are fairing in this respect. We should be told how we are doing in our internal and regional trade. This country has been famous for many things in the past. We were better than our regional partners. Our economy used to grow steadily. Now, it is the economies of our brothers in the south and the north that are growing steadily. I do not know if our economy is stable and growing properly. I am also not sure if we are trusted by our regional partners, because of what we are doing to our economy. This question of sinking Uchumi Supermarkets and endemic corruption have affected every sector of our economy. I am not saying that our neighbours in the south or north are clean. But I am sure that they are very suspicious of Kenya. They may think that when we deal with them in trade, they may not do well. Our our economic and political policies have not been properly laid down, so that we can prosper in regional trade. Our neighbours do not trust us. We may also not trust them, but I know for sure that they do not trust us at all. That is a very serious issue, indeed. I also do not think that our regional co-operation will work. I personally think that it will collapse the way other regional initiatives have collapsed before. This is because our regional 2396 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES July 26, 2006 partners are not going to accept corruption and other malpractices that are happening in this country. We tell them that we are brothers and should come together. How do we come together when we have not done anything about corruption in our country? We have lost the war on corruption. Take it from me or leave it, but this is a fact. Our Minister may probably think that I am not saying the truth. We have lost this war. What have we done about it? Nobody has been prosecuted. It is just wish-wash but nothing has been done. There is a lot of money being sunk into the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission. They say: \"Wait; we will do something\", but they have not come up with anything at all. We should have seen a few people being prosecuted or assets being recovered. Sometime back a Minister told us that a big team had gone to Great Britain to recover the money that was stolen. Where is it? Nothing has happened. The whole thing has fizzled out. We do not know what is happening. We understand that somebody was paid a lot of money to recover our stolen assets overseas. This money is also lost. We should be told how much money has been stashed outside this country and by whom. The British Government and other countries may help, but we tell them not to interfere because it is our business, and that they should not come to rule us. But the stolen money is in Great Britain. How do they not know that the money is there? The money is not in Kenya. It is in UK banks. How do we say that they do not know what is happening? They know by whom, from where and how much has been stolen. When they tell us what to do we say we have not been able to find out what is happening. This is because we want to cover up this matter. This issue of covering up corruption is not going to augur well for the economy and stability of this country. If corruption continues, our people will continue to be poor, and there will be no stability. Some people are happy because they have won the just concluded by-elections. But what is important is the stability of this country. We even do not know what happened to our economy. But one day the truth will be known. When some people complain about misuse of Government resources, they end up being abused. The most important thing is that we must have credibility in this Government, so that people will trust it. Without trust, there is nothing anybody can do. Lastly, I want to thank the Minister for standing firm in the Uchumi Supermarkets scandal. He should continue with his fight to rescue these Supermarkets. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}