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"content": "means, therefore, that we are encouraging a consumptive society which is wasteful by taxing people from their pockets, money that they could use for saving. They have absolutely no control over this consumption. I realized this as early as 1978 when I was teaching at the university when I was invited by the Extra Mural Department. I went around the country giving lectures on harambee as a tax. The KANU Government was not very pleased. I was visited will all kinds of intimidation of trying to undermine the popular elected KANU Government then. Whether it was popularly elected or not is another issue. Mr. Speaker, Sir, in the final analysis, when we say all this, harambee is a form of tax because people pay from their salaries, quite often by compulsion. Compulsion can be overt or covert. As an hon. Member of Parliament, you may find that all of a sudden you get a card at an hour like this, that you need to contribute to a harambee tomorrow. As Sen. (Dr.) Khalwale was intimating, if you refuse, you might subsequently be visited by very unpalatable consequences. You get intimidated and get from what should have been your savings and you pay a tax under compulsion. What we need to do, therefore, since the practice is there, is to be sane enough as lawmakers and lay a legal framework for doing this in a manner that one will serve noble goals and help the contributors to contribute properly. Mr. Speaker, Sir, that is why I am proposing that we should determine the criteria that will qualify projects for which harambee contributions can be made. That criteria, obviously, in my own estimation, will eliminate, for example, pre-weddings, people who want to rescue wives from maternity homes, a job that they did nine months ago, and because they are proper marksmen, they successfully completed the initiative and nine months later, they should bear the consequences at a very personal level. Another thing that should be disqualified from harambee are things that are purely for consumption. When you are raising funds for pure consumption, I think that should not be allowed because it is not leading to accumulation or development. Fourthly, things which should be disqualified are ad hoc things which are not properly thought of. There must be a process by which if you intend to raise funds publicly, then you report it to an institution or a set up that will then give you permission to do what you are doing. I do not want to say that we introduce a regimental system in society or a police kind of system, but surely, if you are going to raise funds in public domain, you should be able to be accountable to the public domain through a process by which you are given permission to do something like this. I know this may look rather draconian on my part, but when people go haywire in misusing an otherwise noble enterprise, then I think some form of control should be brought in because the State is there to regulate things. So, there must be a regulatory function of the State that will make voluntary contribution orderly and accountable. The second thing that I am proposing is to establish procedures for ensuring that harambee contributions are tax deductible. Previously when Members of Parliament were not taxed, we said, rather than pay tax directly, we shall pay tax in terms of supporting society through contributions. I think we did more than our fair share. I am sure Members of Parliament and Senators who have been there before know that we did more than our fair share. Now that we are actually paying tax – I saw my pay slip the other day – and it The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}