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{
    "id": 867968,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/867968/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 206,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Tongaren, FORD – K",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. (Dr.) Eseli Simiyu",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 141,
        "legal_name": "David Eseli Simiyu",
        "slug": "david-eseli"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Deputy Speaker. At the outset, I support the nomination of Maj. (Rtd) Mbarak. This is a fine officer from the military intelligence corps who formed NIS at the beginning. They are very refined people and I am sure he is up to the task. However, he needs to be very aware that Kenya is one large criminal enterprise where people steal money, land, votes, exams and even degrees. We have thrown him in the deep end and he had better be ready to act. The problem with Kenya is the national psyche. We have never grown up from what we were at colonial time. At the colonial time, we were justified to sabotage the colonialists by stealing things from them because it was part of the war effort to win Independence. After Independence, we never graduated from that mindset to realise that this is now our property and it comes from our taxes. We need massive education of the wananchi to know that the money being stolen comes from their taxes. Many of them do not seem to relate to the two. They do not realise that everybody now pays VAT in direct taxes. The Value Added Tax has been charged on a nail on the coffin of a person being buried today. Wananchi have not yet realised this. They glorify people who steal wealth. They glorify and worship them to the extent that when you get an influential office, they expect you to bring goodies home way above the salary that you earn. We need a thorough education of our people so that they can get away from that mentality. For example, people offer bribes to be appointed as chiefs. To be recruited into the Police Service, people sell their land to offer bribes. That is the reason we had Kolongolo in Trans Nzoia. If a policeman bought his position, he is not interested in serving the people. That is why this fellow was stealing somebody’s wife. When that person protests and beats his wife, you want to arrest the person on a market day. Wananchi protested and that was the cause of all those problems. If Major Mbarak goes to the EACC and finds that it cannot be reformed, he should bite the bullet and present a petition here to wind it up. The reason for the formation of the EACC then known as the Kenya Anti-Corruption Authority (KACA) by retired President Moi was all wrong. It was supposed to sort of hoodwink the development partners who were saying that corruption was too much. It was to show them that he was doing something about it. The intention was not to do something about it. If Major Mbarak gets there and finds that EACC is irreformable, he should present a petition, we wind it up and it becomes a department under the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI). That is the only way we can fight corruption."
}