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"id": 241968,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/241968/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Angwenyi",
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"speaker": {
"id": 326,
"legal_name": "Jimmy Nuru Ondieki Angwenyi",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir. Right from the outset, I would like to thank hon. Midiwo for coming up with this Motion. As he has said, this country needs a body that ensures that people get the good quality products and services that they purchase. I realize that we have the Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS), which deals with those things, but those agencies are not consumer-oriented. They are Government agencies, but they have been compromised. They are staffed with bureaucrats who have been in the system for a long time and who have developed ways of siphoning money from the public. For example, some sub- standard poles were imported into this country and the KEBS gave a certificate saying that those poles were sub-standard. A week later, another bureaucrat at the KEBS gave a certificate saying that those poles were standard. Those were the same poles which were certified as sub-standard! If those poles were to be used, especially for long distance cable lines, they could cause electrical accidents. If we had a consumer body that takes care of the interests of consumers, that situation could not have arisen. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we have problems in our health care system. Health services which are provided in most areas of this country are, most of the time, sub-standard. This Parliament passed a Bill or enacted a law which allows even unqualified doctors to operate clinics. All you need to do is to have a certificate of nursing or a certificate of a laboratory technician, and you are allowed to operate a clinic where you treat every disease. Some diseases cannot be treated in our main hospitals, but if you go to those clinics, they tell you that they will treat them. All they 2194 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES July 19, 2006 need to do is to inject you with some substance, which is sometimes water. But because we do not have a proper body to inspect those services, our people are getting a raw deal and some of them are losing their lives. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, you have seen people purporting to be herbalists on the streets of Nairobi and in other towns selling medicine that cures even HIV/AIDS, which we know has no cure. I can give you an example to illustrate my point. At one time, one of my relatives went to Ukambani and he was told that there was somebody who could treat his HIV/AIDS condition. So, he came back to me and told me that he had exhausted the money he had come with from Kisii and he wanted me to give him money for transport and to buy medicine. So, that Saturday, I decided to drive him to that herbal doctor. We went there and this person brought something like mercury and he was tossing it about saying \"I can see where the disease is\". He then demanded Kshs15,000 and I told him that I cannot pay that amount. He said: \"If you do not pay, this man will go and die because I will curse him\". So, I had to part with my Kshs15,000 for no service. If that can be done to a person of my calibre, how about the average Kenyan? Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, you must have noticed that some of our restaurants serve substandard food and services. There was an uncle of mine who had a mkahawa, where he used to sell tea. He would serve you with tea but he would not put enough sugar. So, you would refuse to take that tea after you have tasted it. He would come over, dip his finger into the tea, lick it and say: \"Did you come here to buy sugar or did you come to buy tea?\" If you refused to take the tea, he would demand that you pay. Once you paid, he would pour that tea back into the kettle, so that he could sell it to the next victim. This happened because we did not have a body to check such behaviour. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, you must have seen how our public transport system operates. If you travel in matatus, the service you get is substandard. The crew play loud music. Even if you are sick, they do not care. They can even throw you out. They carry your luggage and toss it onto the ground carelessly and yet you have paid for the service. You cannot have the Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS) or the KEPHIS to compel those people to give you good service. As a result of this carelessness, many accidents have occurred. The Government has been trying to control the rate of accidents on our roads but since Mr. Michuki was moved from the Ministry of Transport, operators in the matatu sector drifted back to their old bad habits. The situation is now even worse because we do not have a body to carry on with Mr. Michuki's reforms before he also deteriorated where he went. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, as I said earlier, Parliament wants to deal with matters that affect the average Kenyan. In most developed countries, there is a consumer body that inspects the services and products sold to consumers, so that you do not have a case similar to the one we had in this House the other day, where a company went to court to prohibit the KEBS from inspecting the goods they had imported into this country. That means the owners knew that those goods were substandard, but they did not want them inspected. If we had a consumer body that knows its job is to make sure that consumers get high quality products and services, and that if it does not do so, it can be sued and be made to pay, the situation would improve. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}