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{
    "id": 697258,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/697258/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 377,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Wangari",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13123,
        "legal_name": "Martha Wangari",
        "slug": "martha-wangari"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, I beg to move that the Self Help Associations Bill (Senate Bill No. 2 of 2015) be read a Second Time. This Bill is quite critical for one reason. In our country, we have made an impact on groups and organisations; be it Community Based Organisations (CBOs), Self-Help Associations, women groups, youth groups et cetera . Most of the monies that come from the Government use that channel to be channeled to the communities. We have had a problem. When you register a company, it is done under the Companies Act; when you register a society, it is done under the Societies Act but when you register a self-help association, there is no law or legal framework that governs that registration. The only interaction that the Government has with the groups is when they issue, review or renew a certificate. Therefore, the main role of this Bill is to give a regulatory and registration framework that will help these groups. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, we have about 1.3 million groups in this country which is a large number. If this transformation that has been brought through the huge amounts of monies that have come through the groups can be seen, then we should see proper transformation. We should also monitor whether groups that got monies five years ago are still in existence today. That is not happening. So, the death of groups is higher than the registration. In fact, out of the 1.3 million groups, maybe about 600 are active. We do not have a register of all the self-help groups in the country. In fact, groups just register to access Uwezo Fund and after that, they close shop. It then loses the meaning and the focus of what groups are supposed to do. Of course, we cannot have all of them active but we need a regulatory framework of capacity building and community development. This is because the Ministry has been charged with that mandate; that you"
}