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{
    "id": 800138,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/800138/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 202,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Halake",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13184,
        "legal_name": "Abshiro Soka Halake",
        "slug": "abshiro-soka-halake"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Madam Temporary Speaker, for giving me this opportunity. I also thank Sen. Mwaura for bringing this Motion. I think everybody agrees that we have a cancer called corruption. We are even losing its definition. Sometimes we get lost as to what constitutes corruption. We keep thinking that, perhaps, corruption is the mega things that are happening. That said, we need to go back to the drawing board and think of some of the practical solutions that we can have at every level to fight corruption. As everybody has said, we have mainstreamed and institutionalised corruption to the point where we cannot even recognise it even if it stared us in the face. Some of it has been made so normal that if you complained against certain aspects of corruption, people will look at you strangely and say: “We have done this and nothing has happened, so far.” So, as everybody has said, it is being normalized and this is sad. I have said it in this House before that in every situation there is always the aggressors, victims and bystanders. I am glad that, today, this House has chosen not to stand by and watch as our country disintegrates under the sheer burden of corruption, but at least speak about it and remind the nation that this is getting to a disaster level. Looking at the systemic aspects of corruption in our country and its institutionalisation, I shudder to think that every institution of this country--- Of late, I do not even watch television because it is giving me so much hopelessness. For example, look at the banking sector and forestry. We have less than seven per cent of forest cover, not because we have industrialised but because of logging. The people that are mandated to guard this are the ones actually perpetrating these atrocities. Of course, corruption has a ripple effect. If people log and go beyond the 10 per cent forest cover, we self-destruct. Climate change vagaries set in and we experience the kind of climate-induced floods and drought cycle that we see. So, corruption has a ripple effect in every sector; from the climate to everything that we do on a daily basis. Madam Temporary Speaker, look at the National Youth Service (NYS), the National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB) and National Land Commission (NLC). The other day in the Committee on Land, Environment and Natural Resources, where I sit, we questioned the issue of compensation for land used for the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR). We learnt that billions were paid to three companies as the rest of the peasant farmers along the SGR line are yet to be paid a coin. It beats logic why a small- The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate"
}