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{
    "id": 697971,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/697971/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 49,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. (Ms.) Abdalla",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 382,
        "legal_name": "Amina Ali Abdalla",
        "slug": "amina-abdalla"
    },
    "content": "that no director who is not a member of the institute and has not gone through the training will be appointed. That is when it will work. Accountants that are trained at the Strathmore University are scared of being involved in corruption because they know they will be blacklisted and will have a bad name. The institution will also follow their bad conduct. This Bill, therefore, just proposes to blacklist individuals yet it has no power to enforce the blacklisted individuals not to get another opportunity to bring down an institution. We, therefore, need to strengthen this. Government entities have a tendency of fighting good ideas because it curbs their powers to appoint. The Committee of the whole House is the right place for us to ensure that we give teeth to this institution that individuals do not serve in parastatals if they caused harm elsewhere. As we look at issues in this Bill and look at the fact that Mwongoz o is a mere policy and needs to be institutionalised, we need to appreciate the checks and balances between the CEO and the board members, as I have just mentioned. In fact, the people we should be dealing with are the Principal Secretaries (PSs). They are the ones who are influencing the boards and playing games between the CEOs and the board members. We need to address that because in many cases, you see a CEO being run out of office. Any time I read in the newspaper that a CEO is being chased away from an institution by the board, I always wait for the next step. If the next step does not involve that CEO being called to Integrity Centre, I always know that the CEO is a victim of boardroom fights over procurement. We need to go further than just making sure that members of the board of directors are trained, but know what they are supposed to do and they come to the boards with clean hands, less conflict of interest and further deal with the pseudo oversights. The body is supposed to be an oversight one, but it appears that they have three or four levels of pseudo oversight that influence how this board works. Maybe, we should be dealing with institutionalising mwongozo by fixing this body and all those other bodies that serve as watchdogs. There are many situations where the more you bring down an institution, the easier it is for you to get a bigger role. We probably need another one for CEOs such that if audit claims you are making billions, you all of a sudden leave that institution and later on the audit turns out to be false, there should be a way of following them up. We need not necessarily go the way of Mumias. These other institutions are basically talk shops. Nothing happens to the individuals. It looks like all you need to do is unmask a lot and then you will do away with it. As Hon. Chrisantus Wamalwa said, as a country, we need to implement the Abdikadir Report about rationalising our parastatals. The reason why we are not able to rationalise our parastatals is simple. People look at the positions of board membership and CEOs as a source of employment. If you try to rationalise institutions which are in many cases performing functions that are not within their constitutional mandate, people from the regions where the CEOs come, or people who have been appointed board members, would come out fighting without looking at the bigger picture. This is a strain on our national resources. We need to cut down the number of parastatals. I agree with Hon. Wamalwa that rationalisation should happen on the first year of any administration, so that we do not have politics creeping in and reducing our capacity to make bold and clear decisions. If we do that, we will save a lot of money and channel our resources to the areas they are needed most. I am very excited because I have had the privilege of reviewing this Bill, which seeks to establish this professional Institute. It does not cost the Exchequer any money. I am dealing with The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}