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{
    "id": 34207,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/34207/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 489,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Midiwo",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 184,
        "legal_name": "Washington Jakoyo Midiwo",
        "slug": "jakoyo-midiwo"
    },
    "content": "Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, I am the one and only hon. Jakoyo Midiwo. I thank hon. Lekuton for bringing a very good idea. Like I said somewhere yesterday, when I was with him, I thought that we could do more in this Bill. I am happy that last night, as I watched news, I saw some Kenyans, particularly the CEO of Equity Bank, Mr. James Mwangi, support this course. I was impressed because he conceded that the unclaimed assets, particularly the ones deposited with banks, are the breeding ground for theft or corruption. I know that many people will oppose this thing. However, I want to beg Parliament that the time to do this thing is now. The Government, in its own wisdom, in March, 2008, set up a taskforce to find a solution on unclaimed assets. Maybe, the Minister will get time to respond to this. But it is amazing that the taskforce came up with recommendations along the same lines you have come up with, except that the Executive chickened out and did not want to implement them. So, you are doing something that our Government is afraid of. In the Bill, we must give the responsibility to citizens to know the existence of their unclaimed assets and ensure that they go to the people who are entrusted with them. As we have spelt somewhere in the Bill, we should make it mandatory that if your father or grandmother deposited so much money with bank “X”, that bank needs to publish that they are holding those assets, as opposed to them waiting for people to not to show up. That is the problem that families of the elderly are facing. The families of the elderly or the dead are facing those problems today when banks simply refuse to pay benefits. Kenyans are spending a lot of money just to chase benefits of the deceased. We want to use this Bill to make that a thing of the past. As you may remember, a few years ago, hon. Musila brought a Bill forcing retirement benefits to be paid within a certain period. However, now, Kenyans are waiting until they die. Even after they die, their families do not get to know where those assets are. So, I want to thank you for doing that. This must be done as far as the NSSF is concerned; all the aged funds and all the asset funds that are there. I wanted to mention one thing to the Mover of this Bill. The Authority cannot be left without control. First, we must specify in law how much money the Authority will use in administration. If you let them collect money on our behalf and they give you negative balance sheets, there is nothing you will do. We do not want to cure corruption by creating another corruption. So, we must limit that ability. Secondly, we must spell it out in law that, that Authority must report to Parliament and not to the Government. It must report to a particular Parliamentary Committee so that we can exercise oversight over what they do with public funds directly. I beg to support."
}