Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 545653,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/545653/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 127,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Bowen",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2256,
        "legal_name": "David Kangongo Bowen",
        "slug": "david-kangongo-bowen"
    },
    "content": "What we saw in KTN’s JichoPevu, that is, an inside story about a metal factory in Mombasa was very disheartening. It is very sad that the people of Owino Uhuru Slums in Mombasa are living-dead. They are dying one after the other because of the effects of chemicals emanating from that factory. As we speak, there is now blame game between the Ministry of Public Health and NEMA. We know that whenever a factory is set up, there is NEMA Report and authority which is given before the factories are given licence to operate. We were shown women who are unable to bear children because they miscarry. We were shown festering wounds on the bodies of young children. It is very sad that NEMA is surviving on taxpayers’ money. Those residents of Owino Uhuru Slums pay taxes! What I saw was very sad. I am not impressed about what NEMA and the Ministry of Public Health are doing. There is need for this House to demand to know what exactly happened in that metal factory in Mombasa. I would also like to talk about the IFMIS system. In the previous financial years, the allocation of money that this House gave to IFMIS in Treasury was huge. All of us know that IFMIS stands for Integrated Financial Management Information System and it is software which is used by Treasury to manage the public finance and procurement. In software practice, one of the characteristics of software is software re-use. Software is just developed once and it is used several times. However, the budget which this system has been given for the last three years is questionable. You cannot have software costing Kshs500 million last year and then this year you use a different language to describe the same system. In software development, it is only about upgrading the new fashion which is in the market. It is about scaling up the system to meet some certain modifications in the Ministry. Last year, this House allocated over Kshs1billion to the Ministry of Devolution in order to roll out IFMIS to counties. This year, again, they are describing it with some complex terminologies, “Hardware Support”. We know that that means the server. You can only purchase a serve once. All they need is to add one or two servers. They really do not need all these billions. I guess that these are some of the loopholes and terminologies used for corruption given that software is not tangible and quantifiable. This is where the corrupt hide in order to make money. I do not want to say a lot because this is just a Supplementary Budget. I would have also touched on the Judiciary because we want to see money meant for development in the Judiciary being taken to the Ministry of Public Works and Housing because the work of Judiciary is just to interpret the law and not to build courts. If they need coats, let them go to the Public Works and Housing otherwise they will be infringing the doctrine of separation of powers."
}