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    "id": 77560,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/77560/?format=api",
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    "content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, this House moved with speed believing that a total of Kshs724,069,864 was allegedly misappropriated. We cross-examined the whistle-blowers. I want to thank Ms. Karua because she gave us many documents but conceded that all those were things that she could not stand by because she had been told by somebody else who had also been told by somebody else. The total figure which the Committee found to have been misappropriated is Kshs23,377,040.60 and not Kshs724,069,864 as alleged. We found that rather strange. There was a huge discrepancy. We moved and investigate an alleged fraud by the whistle-blowers and when they came, they ended up conceding that it was not Kshs724,069,964 but Kshs23,377,040.60. The Committee found out that some expenditure paid in the form of allowances to the CMC from the Kshs23,377,040.60 had been approved by the Annual Delegates Meeting (ADM). That is the reason why the KACC were unable to prosecute and the Attorney-General declined to take anybody to court. At the face value everybody was panicking because they thought that the amount in question was Kshs724,069,964. So, moving to court would have been necessary had we found in the first instance that amounts exceeding Kshs23,377,040.60 were incurred without the ADM’s approval. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, based on the Committee’s analysis on all allegations made before it and from the documents tabled in this House, the Committee came up with the following conclusions and recommendations. Perhaps, it will be good to mention quickly that the Committee had earlier established that there was a Mwaliko Report. The Mwaliko Commission was one of the five commissions which had been established to deal with Harambee SACCO. For those of you who may wish to know what we found, if Harambee SACCO was to be ranked alongside banks, it would be rank between 22 and 23. In actual fact, over 40 banks would fall behind Harambee SACCO. That is a very important point because later on, we will demonstrate that the actual problem that we found out is failure by the Government to strength the Sacco Societies Regulatory Authority (SASRA). The SASRA is the oversight body which is the equivalent of the Central Bank of Kenya’s supervisory powers. That is the actual problem. You cannot have a SACCO which is bigger than about 40 commercial banks running business the same way Mama Pima is runs her SACCO, and that is with due respect, in Kibera, Naivasha or any other place. The rules must be strengthened. This House pushed very hard to have the SACCO Act in place only to realise that the Minister for Finance has deliberately avoided financing the SASRA. Now we are lamenting here over lack of oversight. I also want to state that, at the point the current management took over the Harambee SACCO, and we went through all the audit reports, it had incurred a loss of Kshs500 million. That means that the SACCO was collapsing Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, today, based on the evidence we received, in 2009 alone, they declared a surplus of Kshs700 million, and this was the worst to happen. If we had to liquidate all the assets and close shop at Harambee Sacco, there would be a net worth of Kshs3.5 billion. Harambee Sacco is not about to collapse. I want to say that of all the investigations this committee has undertaken, this has been the most painstaking; we have registered well over 100 hours of sitting. Before we come to these recommendations, it is important to note that unlike what anybody may be thinking, the committees of this House really deal with policy issues. They exercise oversight and look"
}