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"id": 726409,
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Hon. (Eng.) Gumbo",
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"speaker": {
"id": 24,
"legal_name": "Nicholas Gumbo",
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"content": "We see many Kenyans who break the law time and again, day in, day out but a lot of times, instead, of facing the full force of the law, they are given baptismal names. Some of the people who have stolen public funds in this country, instead of being called thieves, are called billionaire businessmen. The footprints are there. This House has discussed some people who have been involved in some of the worst scandals in this country. Instead of being called by their proper names; instead of being called thieves, they are being called billionaire businessmen. They know themselves. Indeed, I have complained here that when national honours are given out, some of those people are the ones who get them and yet, even Members of Parliament like my good neighbour, Hon. Nyikal of Seme, my good friend Member for Alego Usonga and my good friend Member for Kibra who are always here to ensure the Third Reading of Bills is done, are not honoured. When the honours list was done last year, their names did not appear. What kind of a country is this we have? It is like you are being punished for doing your job well. Is this what Kenya wants to be? We reward people for doing all the wrong things. We ought not to have waited for this Report. The law enforcement agencies of this country have always been there. Why are we not seeing the people who are responsible for misuse of taxpayers’ money being made to account for those illegal acts? I am one of the people who have admired how visionary leaders in some parts of this world have lifted their countries from Third World status to First World status. Some of them, in fact, have gone through the route of accumulating pension funds. The story of Singapore is known to people and how the late Lee Kuan Yew, their founding Prime Minister, marshalled the pension funds to be able to provide affordable housing for the people of Singapore. In fact, at one time, it was said that only less than 2 per cent of the people in Singapore were not having affordable and decent housing. It was through proper investment of pension funds. But in our country, NSSF is getting into all manner of projects which are clearly intended to benefit individuals as opposed to benefiting the pensioners. The question must be asked. It is not just the NSSF. Right now my Committee, Public Accounts Committee (PAC), for example, is looking at the misuse of public funds at NYS. It is always the same story. It is a select group of companies that is always getting contracts and, sometimes, sidestepping procurement procedures. We must ask why we would not have an equalisation law of sorts which can track that. I have argued in this House and some people have even said some of the reasons why we do not give work to Kenyan contractors - and I mean firms that are owned by Kenyans - is because they do not have capacity. Where will they get that capacity if the law-making body of this House does not intervene? I argued, for example, when we were doing the National Construction Authority Act that, projects of up to Kshs1 billion should be exclusively reserved for indigenous Kenyans. It was our own Members of Parliament who were calling in the middle of the night and saying we are going to scare away investors and yet, we have discussed here, for example, the issue of illicit financial flaws. Africa is a net giver of capital. Africa receives almost nothing from the rest of the world. This scaremongering that we always get into when we want to capacitate our people and saying we are going to chase away investors is not based on anything. I have never known anyone who can go to any person’s country to build that country. It is not possible. It is even a contradiction. Why would I be more interested in building Uganda than building Kenya? My interest has to be, first and foremost, Kenya. Much as I respect the fact that Uganda and Tanzania are our neighbours, as a Kenyan patriot, my interest has to be in ensuring that, first and foremost, Kenya is built to a level where as many Kenyans as possible can be accommodated before I think of others. But here in Kenya, we are obsessed with this thing. 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."
}