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{
    "id": 315146,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/315146/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 302,
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "The only thing that I have noticed is that these people are more or less like murderers or robbers in our society. If murderers and robbers are normally put to jail for life, I would suggest that the penalties that are supposed to me meted out to these people should be stiffer than what is contained in this Bill. For example, we have seen situations where pensioners have lost all their lump sum amounts to those people, and in the process they got shocked and died just because they knew they could not live well in the society again; they had lost what they had suffered for, for 55 or 60 years of their lives. It is on that note that I feel that the penalties should be raised for the purposes of punishing these culprits. These are people who are living very flashy lives within our society in towns and the countryside. Some of the people who have swindled our people are now seeking high offices in this country. I have cases, but I do not want to mention people; I have seen that people who have swindled others are now campaigning hard using the same money they got from unsuspecting citizens. Such people or such characters need to be taken away from the society; they need to be removed from society because they are making it lose. One of the phenomena that is there is that these people are known. But the Government of Kenya has done little, or nothing to try, and get hold of them. In fact, we have heard a report being read here that these people have not been pursued to make sure that they pay for the losses that people have incurred. Therefore, if we encourage this, more citizens will be tempted to begin the pyramid schemes. So, the Bill is very timely, but the penalties must be stiffer for the purposes of deterring future culprits. There are quite a number of children who dropped out of school, especially those who were in universities; you will realize that the age of the victims was such they would have children in universities. What happened was that they lost all their money and their children were sent home. So, we have lost a section of the society that would have helped us in future just because of these pyramid schemes. That is why I am saying that these are people who do not mean well for our society or country, and they should be punished harder. I want to believe that the Government is going to give – I am happy that Dr. Wekesa is here – a commitment that it will move faster and the President will assent to this Bill immediately it is enacted by Parliament. I want to believe that, as many people who have contributed to the Bill have said, this Bill is going to sail through because most of the people have supported it; in the near future we will live in a country that does not have people who con us. These will include the shylocks we have in the country. We believe that even now shylocks are continuing and I think it is the right time the Government looked into this area to see how it is going to protect its citizens. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, with those few remarks, I beg to support."
}