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{
    "id": 517279,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/517279/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 299,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Where I come from, you will find fabulous leaders who have acquired wealth suddenly equating development with harambees. You will come across leaders spending close to Kshs500,000 to hire choppers from Nairobi only for them to donate Kshs100,000 in the villages. I am very happy that somewhere in this Bill, there is a clause that talks about the percentage that can be used by organisers of fundraisings. We cannot use harambees to compensate for 50 years of historical injustices. In certain areas that we come from, we have seen leaders arguing that for them to develop their specific areas they have to continue carrying out fundraisings. It is that harambees have not benefited this country. Recently, the First Lady organized a very commendable marathon which is aimed at raising funds to go into maternal wellbeing. When you have all these great ambulances and facilities, where do they deliver the women to? They still deliver women to rotten health facilities that we have ignored for years. We must look at some of those areas that we have historically ignored because the greatest appeals or some of the major appeals that we get as leaders on fundraising tend to relate to medical cases. If we can fix the health care sector, provide universal insurance and encourage our people to take last expense insurance which takes care of funerals, probably, some of these appeals will reduce. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, just like other distinguished Senators have said, harambees have worked despite some of the reservations that we have raised. We have seen schools, hospitals, dams and wells built. We have also seen certain private causes that have been funded through harambees. I, personally, benefited from a harambee when people came together to raise fees for my education. A number of people, including my parents and people that I know, have had their medication taken care of through harambees. When I read this Bill, there could be one or two areas that we need to be careful about. Part 4 attempts to classify fundraising appeals. In my mind, I would like to make a distinction between public appeals for public causes and public appeals for private causes. A public appeal for a private cause would be someone going to the streets and telling people to help him secure a wife. That is a public appeal for a private cause. It is upon me to decide whether I want to assist him to get a wife or not. If I help him to fundraise and he does not get a wife, he will die in his own loneliness. I will not go and ask for accountability. However, where it is a public appeal for a public cause, this is one area that we must ensure that we insist on accountability as proposed in this Bill. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, we have seen the CDF or devolved funds that are supposed to be used for public causes being diverted to other things. I have walked around with other Members of National Assembly and you find them providing CDF cheques at a fundraiser. Therefore, making CDF look like it is also a fundraising avenue. Another thing that has failed is that when you do public collections for public causes, like for construction of schools, there tends to be a lot of misappropriation yet we do not have proper modalities for demanding accountability. We have seen cases where once a secondary school conducts a successful harambee, all of a sudden, the school principal is building a hotel in the nearby town; he has bought himself a new car or married the new teacher who has just been posted to the school. 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."
}