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{
    "id": 407621,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/407621/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 220,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Mulu",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1955,
        "legal_name": "Benson Makali Mulu",
        "slug": "benson-makali-mulu"
    },
    "content": "Fund (CDF) and before the county governments came into existence, did not know of an existence of a Government. The only institutions which were known were NGOs and in some places you could go there and find Kenyans saying that the Government they know is the NGOs because of what they are doing. Then we are saying we want to restrict these NGOs to a level where they can only get 15 per cent of their funding from external sources. So, the question I am asking myself is: The Government does not fund NGOs. We have people of goodwill out there who want to fund NGOs so that Kenyans can benefit and yet we want to restrict that funding. Are we really serious as Kenyans? By saying that, I am not saying we do not demand accountability. Actually, I stand for accountability and the NGOs must also be accountable but we are saying the way to make them accountable is not by restricting the amount of money they get. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, I want to quote statistics and it is a known fact that statistics do not cheat. If you look at the current Budget of 2012/2013 of this Government, about Kshs152 billion was contributed by the NGOs in terms of activities and programmes. When you look at the number of people employed, about 400,000 are either directly or indirectly employed by NGOs. Compare that with the manufacturing sector which employs about 200,000 people. Look at the area of governance and human rights and I know very well you have been a champion here, were it not for NGOs the kind of freedom we have in this country in terms of governance and human rights issues we would have been far behind. So, this is a sector which has really made Kenya as a country to move forward. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, last but not least if you remember the early years of 1990s coming towards 2000, there is a time when the Government of Kenya was seen to be so corrupt from our external partners that none of them could channel their money through the Government. What happened? As Kenyans were suffering because the Government did not have money, the same good external partners channeled their support through NGOs and that is the only way we managed to survive. Otherwise, if the NGOs were not there, this alternative funding channel would not have been there. This is why I am saying this Bill in terms of the NGO world, I think we are not doing a good service to them and it is time I plead with the Leader of the Majority Party to either drop this section or if not it will not do any good for Kenyans. So, I plead that this section needs to be relooked at so that we get a good section of NGOs but at the end of the day the bottom-line is that they must be ready to be accountable. For example, in Kitui Central where I come from we have a number of these NGOs doing a lot of development work but I would want that when we sit on a table just as I explain to Kenyans on how I am using my CDF in terms of development activities, the NGO world should also be able to tell Kenyans or the Kitui people what they are doing using the resources they are getting from our friends, either internally or externally. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, the other bit which I think we really need to look at is the issue of the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC)."
}