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{
    "id": 682127,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/682127/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 321,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. (Eng.) Gumbo",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 24,
        "legal_name": "Nicholas Gumbo",
        "slug": "nicholas-gumbo"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to contribute to this Bill. Even as I contribute, I want to echo the words of my good friend, Member for Westlands, Hon. Ferdinand Wanyonyi, on how we intend to govern ourselves as a country. I have said it on the Floor of this House and I want to say it again, that sometimes having many laws in the country does not necessarily mean how well the country is governed. In more ways than one, it is only a demonstration of perversity of nobility. This Bill, in my view, is utopic in so many ways. I have a problem even with the title of the Bill because it is in more ways than one nothing more than a portrayal of extreme forms of perversity of nobility amongst us as Kenyans. The Bill calls itself “The Bribery Bill, 2016.” Are we making a Bill to encourage bribery or are we making a Bill to discourage bribery? In my own sense, I thought we should be talking about anti-bribery Bill and not Bribery Bill, 2016. I have looked at the highlights of this Bill. If you look at the overall objectives of the Bill, the first objective is to extend the fight against corruption to the private sector especially by criminalising bribery in the private sector. My sense, and again I echo the words of my good friend, Hon. Timothy Wanyonyi, we already have enough laws to deal with the problem of bribery and corruption in Kenya. In fact, what is lacking in our country and what has been lacking for a long time, is not the absence of laws, but the will to apply those laws. In this Bill, one of the objectives is to create a legal obligation for every person who becomes aware of an act of bribery to report the matter to the EACC. I am not a lawyer, but I just wonder how effectively you can force someone to be a witness. That is a question that this Bill should answer. In fact, I have just been going through the Bill of Rights. I would have to be convinced that that provision will not be in conflict with certain provisions of the Bill of Rights in our Constitution. Clause 4 relates to the application of the Act. It provides that the Act shall apply to public entities, public officers and private entities. The clause contains a provision which empowers the CS by notice in the Gazette to limit or extend the application of the Act. What are we saying? Are we saying that in matters corruption or bribery, the CS in this instance sits at a high pedestal that he would not be a perpetrator of bribery and corruption? This morning, we had an amendment to the Public Benefits Organisations Act. The reason we had that amendment brought by my good friend, the Member for Ndhiwa, Hon."
}