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{
    "id": 1143432,
    "url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1143432/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 266,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Funyula, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. (Dr.) Wilberforce Oundo",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13331,
        "legal_name": "Wilberforce Ojiambo Oundo",
        "slug": "wilberforce-ojiambo-oundo-2"
    },
    "content": "Control Board, the Cancer Prevention and Control Act, the Public Health Officers (Training Registration and Licencing Act No.12, 2013), the Kenyan Medical Supplies Authority Act, the Counsellors and Psychologists Act, the Physiotherapists Act, the Clinical Officers Act and the main Health Act. It is so clear that we are reversing the gains we have made in terms of professionalising our professional bodies by the mere fact that most of the people who will sit in these boards or councils will be senior Government officers and the chairman is appointed by the President. This means that the team, board or the council, will completely be controlled by the Government and they can take any decisions at the exclusion of other members. The world is going towards self-regulation, and so are most professions. Hon. Speaker, I would like to urge the Committee, and we will move amendments at the Committee of the whole House stage, to literally water down the top-heavy Government representation to reflect the intent and purpose of self-regulation or regulating the training, registration and generally managing the affairs of the profession. Looking at the process of appointment, it seems that the idea is that the board will outsource, resource or look for competent people yet the Constitution of Kenya contemplates that every Kenyan must be given an equal opportunity to compete for any available vacancy in the public service. The idea and main purpose should be competitive recruitment that essentially gives each and every Kenyan a chance to be appointed. Many court cases have led to the idea that you cannot purport to directly appoint members of a board or a council before going through a competitive recruitment process. Therefore, we will propose an amendment to ensure that any appointment, whether to a council or a board, is done competitively through the process of advertisement. The other issue that seems to come out very clearly is that of quorum. Following the top- heavy dilemma, with the quorum set, a few Government-appointed people can sit and make monumental decisions affecting a profession without involving key people who are not in the profession. Those are some of the amendments that we will propose. The second set of amendments that attracted my attention to this Bill have to do with the NHIF Bill. As my colleagues have mentioned, we just dealt with a Bill to do with the NHIF sometime in October last year. I remember we went through the winnowing process and proposed some amendments which went through. It is good that we moved forward. The amendments being proposed more or less tend towards being in respect of the universal healthcare scheme. I note that the key management board of the NHIF now changes to the National Hospital Insurance Fund Board of Management. I do not see the difference with any other term. That should probably bring it in line with whatever they call Mwongozo. There are two issues that come out that need sober and serious discussion. One is the issue of members of the society who are indigent, vulnerable and are supposed to benefit from Government subsidies. The idea of universal healthcare is to ensure that everybody gets medical care. We have had challenges in identifying members for safety net programmes and the cash transfer programme. For example, in my constituency, in the rundown to the 2017 elections, they only selected members whom they knew were supporting the Jubilee Party. They left out all other members who were not supporting the Jubilee Party. It was like dangling a carrot on a stick before them. You were supposed to vote before you were listed in the programme, especially in the election rerun. Leaving the programme to the same people means that we will have continuous complaints. That is why I proposed an amendment to have a system where there is a consultative process at the constituency level that can identify the vulnerable people who are unable to pay for the NHIF The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}