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"id": 253873,
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"speaker_name": "Mr. J. Nyagah",
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"legal_name": "Joseph Nthiga Nyagah",
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"content": "Mr. Speaker, Sir, I also want to draw the attention of this House on the need to keep a very strong oversight role in our functions. The Anglo Leasing contracts were, in fact, approved by this House. I have seen this record in the second last page of the Printed Estimates under External Debts. If you look at that section, it clearly talks of items such as Silverson, Anglo Leasing, Midland bank et cetera . All the things we see here were, in fact, approved by this House. This is a very good lesson for this House, so that, in future, we will be very thorough. We should ensure that some of these things are not passed because Ministers end up accusing us of having approved them just because we did not play the oversight role. So, I hope that the PAC will be very thorough, so that they protect the possibility of our names being misused, in the future, by a Minister trying to cover up his past, saying that some of these projects were approved by this House. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I see two things that happened which were highlighted by the PAC Report. One category is contracts that were purely fake. No goods or services were supplied. This was outright taking money out of the public coffers. That is criminal and action must be taken against those people involved. There is a second category which consists of genuine projects which were highly over- priced. I call them \"genuine\" because it is very clear to me, whether we like it or not, that the issue of computerised passports must be introduced in this country. Otherwise, Kenyans will not be in a position to visit some countries very soon. However, this must be supplied at a price that makes sense and is competitive. It is very clear that the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) must have forensic laboratories. This must be done at prices that are not Anglo Leasing prices. Prices that are competitive because our nation must move forward. We must have this new technology. As a result of corruption, we have not been able to achieve it. We must go for the warship in Spain. We all know that these projects did not succeed because things were implemented wrongly. I am told we are still paying interest for that ship. If we do not want to give it to the navy, we could give it to the Kenya Tourist Board (KTB) to be ferrying tourists to Zanzibar and Seychelles. However, it is important that we stop punishing ourselves. It looks like we are really punishing ourselves. We are incurring huge debts and interest charges because of carelessness of senior officials who signed these contracts. They must never be allowed to do so again. Mr. Speaker, Sir, when we make a mistake of this kind, there should be room for renegotiation. I am sure there is no contract on earth, which does not have a clause for renegotiation. Could we openly renegotiate with Parliament playing an important role, so that we get better terms than what we got before? The moment we left this to a few individuals, that is when we got into a mess. However, it is important for us, as a nation, to think soberly, so that our nation moves forward. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I want to emphasise the need to renegotiate. I am not saying we should forgive those who were involved in these scams. Please, do not misunderstand me. We, as a nation, should not punish ourselves. Sometimes I preach. When I do, at times, I refer to the book of John Chapter 8 in the Holy Bible. Jesus Christ was approached by a crowd and they presented before April 6, 2006 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 427 him an adulterous woman. They said she should be punished. Jesus looked at them and said: \"He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.\" All of us in Kenya have been corrupt, whether a traffic officer or Mr. J. Nyagah. So, it is important that when we are asked to \"throw a stone\", we want to see who will be the first one to do so. I suspect it will be like the days of Jesus. People will walk out one after another and nobody will be left, except, like in the case of the Bible, Jesus and the adulterous woman. I am just preaching this because it is relevant for the PAC to---"
}