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{
    "id": 724218,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/724218/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 415,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Midiwo",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 184,
        "legal_name": "Washington Jakoyo Midiwo",
        "slug": "jakoyo-midiwo"
    },
    "content": "that application off. So, somebody in Kisumu cannot bet through a gambling company in Mombasa. It cannot be free for all. That is the only way we are going to actualise the functions of the counties as set out in Schedule Four. The functions or powers of county governments allow them to have games and control gambling licences for social activities or for development activities like building hospitals and roads. They can even use it for specific reasons. As it were, the reason why this thing is so hot is because the counties have no chance as envisioned by the framers of our Constitution. They have no chance because there is a national platform. Let me tell you because Members may not know. The company that controls that betting platform is Safaricom. Last week, I said it here that we must split Safaricom into three companies. We must. Any responsible nation can do that. Safaricom is the reason why banks are firing Kenyans from the formal sector which has good jobs. It is because they are doing banking activities; they are doing things like gambling; they are doing taxi business and they are doing all kinds of things. That is another law I am also working on. It will be as controversial as this one, but I am working on it because I understand if we do not do it, nobody else shall. Who is Safaricom? Safaricom is 70 per cent owned by Vodacom and some shadowy figures called Mobitelea. So, for all that money, you are giving those people 70 per cent. That money is finding its way to foreign countries. How shameful is that for us as Kenyans! If we do not say it, why are we here? Why are we here if we do not say this? We cannot be intimidated by a few people who want to get rich. I have had a chance to live in a foreign country for many years. No country on earth has individuals, in their small majority, being richer than the government. It is governments that have money because it is governments that provide services. It is governments that do roads. But when you have private individuals doing what is happening with this gambling thing, in a few years, maybe even now, you will have individuals who can say: “President Uhuru Kenyatta, you are leaving State House tonight.” They will have capacity because they have money. Nobody knows where that money is or which foreign country that money is kept in. We cannot allow a scenario where KRA does not know the nationalities of some individuals living here. For some of those companies, one of the things that are worrying them so much is a clause in this Bill that says that those licences must be owned by Kenyan citizens. I was told by a Member who was arguing on the Floor of this House with the late Otieno Kajwang’ that, when he proposed - and it is the law - that all somebody has to do is to marry a Kenyan to become a citizen, he did not know that one of the owners of the companies doing that thing is a Bulgarian married to a Luo girl. That makes him a citizen who can make Kshs600 million shillings a day. One of the other partners is married to a Kikuyu girl. That makes him a citizen who can repatriate our money. He can make Kshs600 million a day and repatriate it using the Safaricom platform to a country we do not know. Hon. Speaker, I saw something being suggested that this House must allow KRA, through a law, to audit Safaricom properly. They are making money. It is a good company and a good employer, but that is all it is. The enjoyment is in the 70 per cent that is not owned by you. Therefore, we must break it up to locally-owned companies that KRA can control, so that, that money can build roads in Isiolo, Nyeri and Mandera. We must do that. This is not a trivial thing, my colleagues. It cannot be and it shall not be. It may not pass, the way I see it, but the facts must come out. I doubt because I heard you."
}