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{
    "id": 644897,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/644897/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 205,
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    "content": "Finally, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, because my time is limited – I have about five minutes – other than what the President said about building the country in terms of hardware but also in terms of the software, the other thing that caught my eye in his speech and Address is his very strong stand on corruption at both national and county government levels. As Senators can see from the President’s Address, he dismissed six out of 18 Cabinet Secretaries for accusations about corruption. They had not been charged; of course, two of them were charged later but at the time of dismissal, they had not been charged or prosecuted but he dismissed them because he did not want any implication that there is no political will to fight corruption; a very painful decision by any administration. I do not think there is any greater commitment or demonstration of political will than to shed off a third of your Cabinet at ago on just mere accusations. With that kind of support, this country will finally come around the challenge of corruption that is threatening to tear our country apart. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, other than the Cabinet Secretaries, nearly 300 public officers, for example, Principal Secretaries and parastatal officers are going through court processes on corruption related accusations. The only challenge the President heighted which I reiterate is that there is a lot of discontent with the slow pace of judicial processes. Citizens are getting angry. Wananchi do not know the difference between the Executive and the Judiciary. The citizens do not care much about the separation of powers. It is there. In other words, the Judiciary must pull up their socks and help us to resolve these corruption related cases so that we can give citizens an assurance that something is being done to make sure that we stamp out corruption. At the county level, as I have said before and I reiterate on the Floor of this House; the biggest threat to devolution today, is the corruption that is being perpetuated from within the structures of devolution. If you like, the internal threats to devolution are more vicious than external threats. I will tell you why. It is unconstitutional today, for example, for any administration to reduce the money that counties are supposed to get to below 15 per cent because they will be acting unconstitutionally and there are consequences. Therefore, there are ways in which that can be controlled. However, the kind of plunder, theft and blatant robbery that are going on in our counties, if not checked, will bring down Kenya in a very short period of time. We created the devolved units to fight a one-man show; a centralized domineering Government. In our quest to run away from one big man in Nairobi, we have created 47 little big men; we have created 47 little big men in all the villages of Kenya; people who do not believe in the rule of law and who instead supervise the raping of resources of our country. This Senate, through the appropriate Committee, must come out strongly. If there is nothing else we will do in this Session, the greatest service we can do to Kenyans before the end of this term is to ensure that the people who are looting money meant for devolution are brought to book. We lost a lot of time because of the Judiciary. So, we are realizing that we have only a year or so to go but a message must be sent out. We cannot have some little boys and girls who have never held any other position in public or private employment but are junior people in the counties but all of a sudden in the village, they are driving five cars, building storey buildings left, right and centre. Where have they got this money from? 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"
}