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{
    "id": 607191,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/607191/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 280,
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    "content": "people’s rights. The CID is very active on that yet on matters of accountability and corruption, you no longer hear them. The creation of the Ethics and Anti Corruption Commission (EACC) was not in place of the CID. It was in addition. We do not hear about the CID anymore, and in EACC, we do not see much going on. Somebody was telling me that the case of the ‘chicken people’ in London was predicated on evidence from Kenya provided by the EACC. The men in London are now in jail, including a 75 year old man. In Kenya, we are told; “Where is the evidence?” It is really distressing. Then, we have the Office of the Auditor-General. I listened to Sen. Murkomen, pontificating about the failure of that office to work. My Chairman can tell you that the Office of the Auditor-General has been dismembered to a level where it cannot work. They are not given adequate budget to even audit Nairobi County which is 60 per cent of our GDP. One would expect that with this runaway corruption, the Office of the Auditor- General should now be moving to have a fully-fledged office in every county, so that we move away from these postmortems on theft and corruption and have a process of stopping corruption and theft. What is the purpose of the annual ritual of telling the country that last year, we lost Kshs10 billion in corruption; last year, we lost so much; last year, this or that department lost so much? We can do prevention, but what are we seeing from this Government? There is a Bill in the National Assembly crippling the Office of the Controller and Auditor-General even further. In fact, it is attempting to make him an independent constitutional office accountable to the Attorney-General. This is not the conduct of a country that desires to fight corruption. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, I want to urge my Chairperson – who is quite good at figures and other things – that our Committee should originate a Bill – regardless of what is in the National Assembly – and bring it here to strengthen the Office of the Controller and Auditor-General. Let them kill it at some level or at some place, but let it go into the history of this country that we in the Senate fought to strengthen the Office of the Controller and Auditor-General, including a provision for a full fledged office in each county to monitor the expenditure of public resources. Then, Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, we have the county assemblies, which have been completely crippled. They have been captured by governors; they live on the goodwill of governors and they cannot possibly oversight them at all. I have heard Sen. Murkomen talking about the media. Once again, sometimes we say things that we do not believe in – and I reserve my harsh words for him – but he has been part of the problem. On the overlap of functions, I listened to my Chairperson and he was very eloquent. I dare ask; the Ministry of Devolution is a transitional Ministry; why is it controlling devolved functions like water? People are queuing at the Ministry of Devolution to be given gifts and political goodwill projects to go and construct dams when water is a devolved function. The National Youth Service (NYS) at the very most is a paramilitary organization; it should be under the Office of the President, which is Maj. (Rtd.) Nkaissery’s office. What is it doing under the Ministry of Devolution? Is it because last year its budget rose from Kshs200 million to Kshs17 billion? Why is it under the Ministry of Devolution? What is devolution about the NYS other than creating centres 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."
}