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"speaker_name": "Mr. Wetangula",
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"content": " Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir. I am rich at heart but poor in material terms. I wish to second this important Sessional Paper. The duty and the role of the Government is to regulate and lay down a framework, legal, administrative and in any other way, for the orderly running of the affairs of State and affairs within the State. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, there is no doubt whatsoever that NGOs have played and continue to play a very critical role in the development of the socio-economic and political activities of this country. Equally, NGOs elsewhere have had opportunities and capacities to run parallel governments or even over-run governments. It is important that the NGO sector is regulated sufficiently, to show cohesion in policy, operation but above all, to make them transparent and accountable. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the evolution of NGOs in this country, particularly in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s, was an alternative created by donors and local partners to circumvent what they called \"grand corruption\" in the Government. We were once told during a meeting by an administrator of a leading NGO that the NGO sector in this country spent up to Kshs48 billion per annum While we laud evolution of the NGO sector, you and I know that the cancer that afflicts our society has not spared them either. Fraud, corruption and dishonesty have crept into the NGO sector. Some NGOs in this country are today synonymous with corruption and fraud. This is so because of poor regulation and lack of clarity in our policy. I recall that in 1997, a certain NGO known by an acronym \"CRIC\" talked to hon. Murungi, hon.Kituyi and myself when we were candidates for a parliamentary election. A character who used to run that NGO, a Mr. Otieno, gave us some token sponsorship of Kshs120,000 each for our election campaigns. He paraded us in a seminar and asked us to laud the role of NGOs in development. Shockingly, after the elections, an auditor from a Norwegian organisation that funded that NGO turned up in my office and asked me to confirm or deny that CRIC had paid hon. Kiraitu, hon. Kituyi and myself Kshs12 million each for parliamentary campaigns. It turned out that Mr. July 6, 2006 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 1937 Otieno had dishonestly misappropriated money in our names after parading us before the Press and paying each of us Kshs120,000. In fact, he had got away with millions using our names. I believe that he did that to many other politicians, because he was all over the country that time. That is one example of how an NGO representative can be dishonest. There are many other NGOs which are being formed by men and women who carry briefcases and have no offices anywhere. Some NGOs are even creeping into CDF funds. There is no single Member of Parliament in this House who is not being molested in his or her constituency by NGO representatives to fund them. When you ask them what they do, they show you nothing. When you ask them how they will account for the money, you automatically become a bad person. They have become so opaque that if we as Parliament approved the Sessional Paper, that must be followed by radical amendments to the NGO Act to provide for accountable behaviour by NGOs. Everyone of us will be happy to have honestly run NGOs in their constituency, carrying or performing honest jobs that are beneficial to our people. This would take away pressure from us, leaders. It is very painful to see these fellows who do not have offices carrying briefcases and raking in millions of shillings. These people do not pay taxes; they are not accountable to anybody; and anyone who stands in their way meets their wrath and becomes an enemy instantly. Today, NGOs are the surest avenues in this country for those who want to be elected to Parliament or join politics. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, you saw what happened the other day to an otherwise respectable NGO called Transparency International (TI), which all of us here have been relying on to give us information and lessons on accountability and probity. We all saw and read what that NGO is going through now. They are not insulated from the vices that we are talking about. We are told that their chief officer has been embroiled in fraud. We are also told that the Board is embroiled in tribalism, and everybody in that NGO is devoid of any credit. If TI, the regulators of regulators, can be caught in that web and the State remains a helpless bystander, only watching as things unfold, then the reason becomes even clearer that this Sessional Paper is desirable and absolutely necessary. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, we have the HIV/AIDS funds which each one of us is supposed to use in their constituencies. There is not a single hon. Member in this House who does not have a list of unaccountable and opaque NGOs in his or her constituency. Some are called Community- Based Organisations (CBOs) and others NGOs. They go by all sorts of names. The bottom line, however, is that NGOs are non-accountable organisations. We have to create a situation whereby funds meant for the ordinary people in this country reach them. We must ensure that the evolution and revolution that the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) is doing in this country--- If NGOs are making up to Kshs45 billion to Kshs46 billion per annum, compare that with what hon. Members of Parliament are doing in their constituencies with the CDF money. If only that money went into human development, infrastructural development, education and health, and not to be used to buy Four-Wheel Drive vehicles or squandered on endless and uncountable seminars, which do not achieve anything, then it would greatly improve the economy of this country. We have been told severally that 98 per cent of Kenyans know that there is HIV/AIDS. They also know that it has no cure and that it kills. However, every CBO and NGO involved in the HIV/AIDS campaigns dwells on seminars. Every day, HIV/AIDS seminars are being conducted. Why would you drag people into awareness of things that they already know? This is what this Paper intends to address. We have developed this country into what Mr. Muturi and I have been calling a \"seminar mania\". Everybody is just going to seminars to talk about things that were talked about yesterday, last month and last year. We need regulations to be put in place. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I have a lot to say about this Paper, but since time has run out, I 1938 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES July 6, 2006 will carry on with my contribution on Tuesday, next week."
}