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{
    "id": 419558,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/419558/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 252,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Billow",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 260,
        "legal_name": "Billow Adan Kerrow",
        "slug": "billow-kerrow"
    },
    "content": "You can say that the Government is fighting it, but as far as we are concerned, it is the number of corruption cases being reported. I want to appeal to every Member of Parliament and every Senator that when we speak here, we pretend to be speaking for the people of Kenya with regard to corruption, but when we go out there to our “manyattas”, we start defending our people. We all saw what the Administrative Review Board came up with regarding the procurement of lap tops. It is very clear in their report that in addition to what those guys quoted, an additional so much billion was added on top. There is one principle that Kenyans must not miss and we raised this issue with regard to the impeachment of Governor Wambora. When President Nixon was being impeached, the question was: When does a leader take responsibility for the actions of his servants or his employees? As long as you know that your employee is doing that work, you take responsibility for his actions. If the Minister knows that this money was fleeced for payment of that allowance to the university lecturers and the money was diverted and he did not take action on any of those university administrators, he takes responsibility. He takes responsibility in the same way he failed to guide the issue of the laptop tender. So, when we go to the “ manyattas” we should not defend people like that. I do not blame the Senators and the Members of Parliament, but the leadership of the country. We cannot keep on saying at every function that we have a zero tolerance to corruption when this Cabinet Secretary after the other one is being associated with corruption in the newspapers. How many Cabinet Secretaries have been reported to the President in the last one year? They are not less than three or five that people wrote about and nothing happened. Even stepping aside, for Heaven’s sake, to pave way for investigations, that will send a message and it will benefit the President and strengthen his commitment to fighting corruption. We must fight for this culture that whoever is given a responsibility in Government, really must admit that the buck stops with him, so that a Minister takes credit when something is going right. Like the other day when he was releasing the examination results, the Minister took credit for everything that goes right, but when something goes wrong, it is not him. That cannot work and yet this is what is happening in every Ministry. In those Ministries where the report has been made to the President, it will really help. We wanted a Government for change, for Heaven’s sake in this Jubilee Government. We did not want the status quo . It should not be business as usual. The President should ask people to step aside in order to avoid this crisis we are in. Why should our students be on the streets because some people have messed around with the management of the universities? How many people can run those universities who are without jobs? I think it is a question of being committed to fighting for our rights. I support the Motion."
}