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{
    "id": 976843,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/976843/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 277,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Kang’ata",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1826,
        "legal_name": "Irungu Kang'ata",
        "slug": "irungu-kangata"
    },
    "content": "we can tidy up what I would call transnational justice mechanisms in the fight against white-collar crime. Madam Temporary Speaker, I also support this Bill because I have been reading newspapers, and we have people coming for vetting before the National Assembly. There is a correlation. Every time you see a nominee for the position of Principal Secretary (PS), they declare wealth of about Kshs200 million, Kshs300 million or even Kshs1 billion. Surely, this is happening in a country that is so poor like Kenya and this is a person who has been in public service through and through. We all know the kind of salaries that are paid in the public service. When you see the kind of declarations those people are making, we need this law to investigate such characters. For me, in terms of wealth creation, the richest people in this country ought to be in the private sector. That is where you create new ideas. As a result of those ideas, you then attract wealth because people come to purchase those ideas. You then appropriate money and become wealthy. When you see public or civil servants becoming millionaires and billionaires that is dangerous. People do not join the public service to become rich. Wealth ought to be created out there because out there is where you are free, equal and no one is assisting you. In Government, you are a servant in a positon of privilege and power, and you are going to leverage on that position to create wealth. Ideally, the richest people should be bankers, scientists or people coming up with ideas out there which then generate wealth. Madam Temporary Speaker, in the USA or other advanced democracies, you will never see public servants becoming billionaires as compared to this country. In fact, to know how sick Kenya is in terms of corruption you only need to do an analysis of the rich people in Kenya. You will always find out that at one point of their life, they were in major positons of service in the public sector. There is a correlation between being wealthy in Kenya and having served in the public service at one moment. To me, that is not a good system. A good system is where you are creating a patent which then does a good thing and you get a lot of money. You come up with an idea out there without any assistance or getting a penny from the Government. You create so much wealth and become rich. The kind of society that we have in Kenya compels people to now fight for positions in Government. That explains why there is huge jostling for political positions. People want political or Government positions so that they leverage and then become rich. We should not become rich by leveraging. Let us become rich by coming up with good ideas which are protected by the State. Those ideas will then empower the society. Let us create new scientific patterns and new businesses that employ people. Let us create wealth out there, but not joining the Government and overnight one is a billionaire. That is not how a society is made or how capitalism operates. A government should just enable society to live well, not people who are serving the government to become the rich in the country. If this Bill will enable us to fight corruption, to me, that is positive. Madam Temporary Speaker, I laud His Excellency President Uhuru Kenyatta because he is the first President to go after major fat cats in this country. I have never seen any government prosecuting a Cabinet Secretary in charge of finance. For the first time, we are seeing a governor facing criminal charges before a court of law. To that The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}