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{
    "id": 744409,
    "url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/744409/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 87,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "have a situation where out there in the counties; the County Executive Committee members (CEC) have become unimpeachable as a result of a court ruling that was delivered somewhere in Bungoma. The CEC members are engaging in very unscrupulous and corrupt activities and there is no way the county assemblies can hold them accountable because they are protected and shielded by a court order. We need an Impeachment Bill to give further clarity and add more flesh to these Standing Orders so that any public or State officer who is subject to impeachment knows the kind of treatment they should expect from this House; and Members of this House also know how they are to conduct themselves when looking at such a critical matter. For that reason, I congratulate the team and I believe that when we come up with a proper Impeachment Bill, the issues of impeachment and any gaps that could have been left in the Standing Orders will be addressed. Madam, Temporary Speaker, I also want to comment on the issue of Petitions. We have always complained about them, including the duration that this House is given to discuss the reports of Committees that have been considering Petitions. The current practice before adoption of the amendments has been that within 60 days a Committee is supposed to respond to the petitioner. When that response to the petitioner is brought to this House, debate on it is extremely limited and in many cases, it is at the pleasure of the Speaker. We must open up this issue because some Petitions tend to be extremely weighty in nature. I recall we were talking about the issue of compensation for former councillors. It is an issue that has been outstanding. We have got a thousand men and women who have laid the foundation of devolution that the governors and people out there enjoy today. However, they live in a state of squalor and great poverty. When that Petition came to this House, it was duly considered by the relevant Committee and it was unfortunate that those of us and almost all of us who had an interest in canvassing some of the issues that had been raised by the petitioners or those highlighted by the Committee were unable to do that. Therefore, our Standing Orders must allow us adequate time to look into Petitions, particularly those that are weighty in nature. The Constitution has given everybody an opportunity to petition this House. It will take quite some balancing for us to attempt to define what Petition is important or not. This is because when the rain falls on you, you feel it and believe that it is wet everywhere. People sometimes are touched by things such as inadequacies of State officers or even things that touch on civil relationships between them and other relevant State organs. We have always allowed anyone to bring a Petition to this House, but how I wish we could do pre-publication scrutiny for Petitions the way we do for Bills. That might be called censorship in a way, but it might also enable this Senate to process only those that have got a huge bearing on devolution and only those Petitions that we know if well treated, would make a difference in the lives of the people. We have seen in the past matters that come to this House which we thought should have been pursued in a court of law. There are cases where an individual company has not been paid for services rendered and sometimes the Senate is not the right arena for resolution of such issues, maybe the courts of law, yet right now anyone is free to"
}