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"speaker_name": "Mr. Angwenyi",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me a chance to contribute to this very important Motion. First of all, I want to commend the Minister for bringing this Sessional Paper. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, this country lacks a proper legislative framework to manage NGOs. As a result, they have gone wild. Today, I understand we have in excess of 4,000 NGOs in this country, but when I look around in my constituency, Kitutu Chache, with a population of over 300,000, there is only one NGO which has moved into that constituency, but which was not acceptable to the community, and they had to pack up and go. These NGOs have become conduits for bringing in money to enrich individuals. The NGOs that we have are not transparent or accountable to anybody. A majority of them are corrupt. How are they corrupt? If you look at the recruitment of their staff, you will find that they are family-managed. The NGOs that shout a lot about the Government not being transparent are not transparent themselves. They employ their family members without regard to the communities they seve. They are not accountable to anybody. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the NGOs we have do not want to serve the entire country. For example, we have NGOs that deal with water and they concentrate in one or two parts of this country when, in fact, the need for water is so widespread. If you look at the amount of money that is received by these NGOs, it is almost one-third of the total budget of this country. If that money was used to provide water in this country, every home would have piped clean water. But they do not do it. If they applied that money to healthcare, every constituency would have 10 new health facilities that are fully staffed with personnel and medicine. But they do not do this because they are conduits for enriching the people who have founded them. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I was talking to one of the NGOs that moved to my constituency. That NGO does not respect the culture of the people of Kitutu Chache. Instead of bringing water or providing healthcare to our womenfolk, they came to tackle female circumcision. In that area, 100 per cent of women go through that ritual. They love it. Instead of providing water, they were trying to discourage people from their culture. I do not understand our Government. How do you license an NGO to do work on an area that the community does not want? I hope that when we pass this Sessional Paper, the Government will come up with a clear law that governs and manages NGOs. We should have a law that says that an NGO cannot be allowed to work in this country unless its serves a substantial section of the country. That is how we can tell that these NGOs serve the people of Kenya. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, some NGOs misappropriate the funds they get. They use Kenyans' needs to source funds from abroad, bring them here and misappropriate them. They use the money for politicking. In fact, they use the money to impede the smooth development of this country. We have seen some NGOs opposing development projects. Take, for example, the Sondu Miriu Hydro-electric Programme. That project has been delayed by five years simply because some NGOs were making noise, and yet they were not providing power to Kenyans. Two years ago, this country suffered power shortage and industries closed down. The Japanese Government which was financing the Sondu Miriu project had to withhold funding because of those NGOs. How can the Government license an NGO that opposes development? We have even seen others oppose the construction of some roads and yet there are no roads in those areas! For example, an NGO was opposing the construction of a by-pass through the Nairobi National Park, and yet we have a lot of traffic congestion in Nairobi City. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, such NGOs should be proscribed, so that they do not operate in this country. Some NGOs work in cohort with foreign powers which want to dominate and rule this country. The Government has allowed such NGOs to operate. I cannot understand the July 13, 2006 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 2107 current Government. The former Government used to face such NGOs and tell them to do what they are required to do. I hope the Government will enact the necessary laws to manage the NGOs. This country must demand the NGOs to be accountable to the people of Kenya through the Government. They should give returns at the end of every year by declaring how much money they received and how that money was spent. If the Government finds that an NGOs has misappropriated money, it should handle the issue the same way it handles the issue of public officers who misappropriate funds. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I have been to other countries where NGOs operate. They initiate projects that are sustainable and whose beneficiaries can be seen on the ground. Some of the NGOs in this country cannot show what they are doing. They only wrangle in the boards or the councils. The other day, they locked up their chairperson somewhere in Upper Hill for two weeks. That lady was about to die before somebody assisted her to get out of that temporary jail. I was surprised that the Minister in charge of NGOs could not go to the rescue of that old lady, namely, Ms. Rogo, when some of her colleagues locked her up in her office. I have seen this Sessional Paper and what has been proposed in it is quite adequate. We can make improvements when the Bill is brought to the Floor of the House, so that we have a regulatory regime that is effective. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}