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{
"id": 949623,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/949623/?format=api",
"text_counter": 218,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Funyula, ODM",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Wilberforce Oundo",
"speaker": {
"id": 13331,
"legal_name": "Wilberforce Ojiambo Oundo",
"slug": "wilberforce-ojiambo-oundo-2"
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"content": "Data prevailing in the country, whether reliable or not, indicate that probably almost a quarter or 30 per cent of the annual budget, be it development or recurrent, is lost through corruption. That is a colossal sum of money that could have been used to move this country forward. It is even said that many of our jobless youths, our graduates and many of our men and women who are jobless are jobless because of acts that border on corruption. They are jobless and they lack any sense of employment or income generation because they have been denied an opportunity simply because they were not ready or they have no capacity to get involved in corruption. Nepotism, favouritism and giving people positions they do not deserve is all corruption. It is, therefore, important that, as a country, we must literally relook at Chapter Six on Leadership and Integrity. We must look at that particular Act that normally states what the requirements of leadership and public office are, to see whether we can strengthen those particular policies and regulations to deter any opportunities to commit corruption. I hope this institute in collaboration with the current institute will mainstream the discussion and training on the issue of Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Act so that all members of the public and those who work in the public sector, be it national Government or the county governments, are in a position to studiously follow the provisions of that Act to avoid cases where we bend the rules and laws in order to benefit a particular group of people. It is a shame that in this country, we say normally that corruption starts at the budgeting level. We hide corruption in our budget, be it recurrent or capital expenditure. It is, therefore, important for those of us who sit in various committees to make all efforts to scrutinize every single entry to those budgets to smoke out any tendencies to conceal corrupt practices through the budget- making process. Secondly, I am encouraged that the Liaison Committee and the House leadership has developed or is about to develop a framework that allows committees to generally scrutinize, on quarterly basis, the performance of the various ministries and state agencies. We hope this is not just hot air or PR talk. We hope it will come to fruition so that, as committee members, we can receive those quarterly reports and evaluate performance, be it financial, administrative or managerial, to try and flag out any aspects of corruption. As much as we are going to fight corruption at the national level, it is also a call to the county assemblies and the Senate that we should not wait to become morticians as we have always said, but we must really be like doctors who diagnose any signs of sickness or illness on a patient so that we address those issues good enough. It is important that the Senate knows its role in the fight against corruption so that it can focus on that particular area. The Senate should avoid looking for supremacy battles with the National Assembly and yet, there is massive looting at the county level to the extent that, literally, most of the counties have no development record to show and yet, they have gobbled lots of billions since devolution came into being. I come from Busia County where the other day, a mysterious fire targeted the revenue office where records were kept and burnt all the records relating to contracts and payment vouchers. This is how far corruption cartels have gone. We hope that the training institute and academy will help address those challenges. With those few remarks, I support the Motion."
}