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{
    "id": 620644,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/620644/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 368,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Bowen",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2256,
        "legal_name": "David Kangongo Bowen",
        "slug": "david-kangongo-bowen"
    },
    "content": "The Bill provides that the people who will be accredited to provide legal aid services will have a chance to go round to sensitisation the people on some new Bills that we are going to pass in this House. We have many pieces of legislation that touch on the people, but they do not understand. If people can go round the country to provide free legal service, educate the people and sensitise them, it is going to be important. I have a concern about the creation of boards. The provisions of this Bill and the administration of the Fund should be implemented using the already existing Government legal institution. I am of the idea that we should not create some more boards because this also comes with administration costs and employment of staff. Again, we are struggling with the issue of the wage bill in the country. If this Bill is passed by this House, we should use the already existing Government legal institutions like the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), the Kenya Law Reform Commission and others. This is going to be cheaper. Otherwise, if we create other boards where we have to get a chief executive officer (CEO) and board of directors, this is going to be an additional cost on an already burdened wage bill. We also need to be very careful on the criteria of choosing the people who are going to provide legal aid services. We have seen so many quacks and NGOs pretending to be assisting our people. We have seen many of them saying that that they want to employ our youth. We seen others who pretend to be giving educational bursaries and such kind of support to our people, but in a way, they are using our people to get money from donors and benefit themselves without benefitting our people. So, we need to vet these people very seriously. There is also need to have a framework within which they will be submitting their annual reports on their expenditures and how they have used the money from the donors. We should not allow the use of the poor Kenyans by the NGOs to get money. We should also have an elaborate plan on the criteria of choosing the beneficiaries of legal aid. What evaluation criteria are we going to use so that we can decide that certain people deserve to be given legal aid and not others? If we put all these things together and make sure that we have the right people to administer the Fund, this is a very important Bill. It is going to assist many Kenyans who are very poor. Access to justice has become very expensive, especially in Kenya. If what we read in newspapers is true that some people pay millions of shillings, so that they can get released, then the poor cannot access justice. Just the other day, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Report showed what is happening in the Judiciary and the massive corruption that we saw there. If it is true that millions of shillings were lost, people bribed in the Judiciary and the massive corruption exists, then it has become very expensive to access justice. This Bill will go a long way to assist the many people who are languishing in prisons and those who travel every week from upcountry to Nairobi to hear their cases, which is very expensive. I support this Bill. We will make some amendments when time comes."
}