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{
    "id": 516059,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/516059/?format=api",
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    "content": "like to educate the newer members in the political arena. It does not make that much difference. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, the issue is then compounded by those seeking support. The flipside of corruption is by those who are seeking the harambees. The Bill must answer the following very simple questions:- (a) Is the harambee necessary? (b) Who is carrying out this harambee? (c) How able is the person who is seeking for funding? For example, I am sure that all elected people have seen cases where a man will drive a BMW right in front of your house and present you with a form for you to attend a harambee to raise Kshs25,000 for his child’s secondary school fees; money that is less than the cost of one tyre of his BMW. That is not only an abuse of me, as an individual, but also the system. That is money that is taken away from people who are very deserving. A case of a child who scored 400 marks and has been admitted to Alliance High School but cannot join the school is deserving, especially if the parents are poor. But where the parents are not poor, why would we allow them to subject Members of Parliament and the business community to such abuse just out of selfishness? We did not know harambee because they are pretty recent and they were poor people.They used to wear shoes that would go so high in terms of the shoe finishing that they would look for firestone tyres, so that they can fix the edge of the shoe so that they can continue using the same shoe. These days, you do not need to do that, you can wear ballet shoes and go for an harambee because other people can finance your children even when you have money. This is what the Bill should address. There are deserving cases that we should continue helping but there are people who must not beg. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, you know that begging is not something positive. It is actually negative but it has reached to the point where in this country- and it is the politicians who have made it like this - where we are proud of begging. We beg as a last resort because you must.These days, people beg for anything. We have people begging so that they can do a hairdo they say “send me some money so that I can do my hair”. It is getting to a point where it is simply not tenable. I want to very quickly say just one or two other things. First, we should seek for a way through the Bill of involving corporations in fundraising effort in the country, particularly, when it comes to public primary and secondary schools and public institutions that are of benefit to the public. The definition of a public institution is not one that is necessarily used by the public but one that is owned by the public. So that if my company contributes to Kehata Primary School, the money that I contribute from my company should be tax allowable, so that corporations can feel the need to participate in society in terms of their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). This is very important because this is the practice in the United States of America (USA). If you contribute to an area like that, the contribution is tax-exempted. We must look for a way of ensuring that we start involving corporations, so that we can minimize the amount of participation by individuals in the area of fundraising.We cannot ban fundraising but we can certainly control the manner in which we do it. The idea is to bring discipline in an area that is clearly filled with indiscipline. The idea is to change 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."
}