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{
    "id": 441105,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/441105/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 138,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Wetangula",
    "speaker_title": "The Senate Minority Leader",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 210,
        "legal_name": "Moses Masika Wetangula",
        "slug": "moses-wetangula"
    },
    "content": " Mr. Speaker, Sir, let me carry on. In this Bill, for example, they are talking about the content of alcohol in a drinker to warrant disqualification from driving. It is foolhardy to say that a person who has consumed two or three beers is drunk and incapable of driving. It depends on the individual. There are people who would get drunk by just sniffing alcohol. There are people who will get drunk by just taking one beer, others by taking ten and others who do not get drunk at all. So, we cannot throw a blanket net and say that anybody who has taken some quantum of alcohol is incapable of driving. That does not make any logic both in law and in fact. Mr. Speaker, Sir, the Government license people who run business of selling alcohol and we have enough law, including the law he is purporting to amend that regulates drinking hours, we have a law that regulates the age at which people can buy alcohol. The problem is not the law, the problem is corruption in this Government. Where we have seen these days the people armed with television crew, go to position themselves outside pubs with instruments called alcoblow, humiliate people regardless of whether they are drunk or not. That is a toll station and the purpose is to frisk money from the public. The purpose is not to control consumption of alcohol. That is why I talked about Mututho. He tried in the last Parliament and failed to bring a law that two days to elections there should be no consumption of alcohol in the country. That is an absurdity of the highest order. Now it has come through Sen. (Prof.) Kindiki. This is the same issue; that two days before elections, no consumption of alcohol. Is there any evidence, scientific or otherwise that people who drink cannot vote or do not vote? Is there any evidence scientific or otherwise to show that people who drink a day or two elections do not vote properly or at all? There is none. Why do we want to kill entrepreneurship simply because we are going to an election? It does not make sense. If this Government is idle and has nothing to do, they should not bring us these Bills that are an assault and an affront to the freedom of Kenyans. If one is concerned about illicit brews, when did we get visited in this country by illicit brews that are crippling and blinding them in the last about ten years? Were people not drinking from colonial days? Did you hear at any time, in Turkana County or anywhere else, 20 years ago that people were drinking and saying “hata mkizima taa nitaendelea kunywa tu” because they have lost their sight? There was no such thing because of greed which we can control through public education. Another reason why this is happening is due to corruption. People who have been given a chance to license are not doing the right thing. It is because we have made this country be a country of rich people who can enjoy their single malt as you hear and purport to bring here a law to deny the ordinary man the opportunity to enjoy a drink. Where I come from, we brew busaa and I can confess here that I grew up because my mother was brewing and selling"
}