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"speaker_name": "Mr. Mbadi",
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"legal_name": "John Mbadi Ng'ong'o",
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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, usually, I like supporting the reports of Committees of Parliament, because they are part of us, but I have a difficulty in supporting this Report. Actually, I have to oppose it. Why do I say so? If you look at the recommendations of the Committee, they talk about violation of the law. If you read the entire Report, there is nowhere they have cited the specific provisions of law that were violated. As a House, I believe it is important that if you are making recommendations, especially touching on a major decision as this one, you need to be specific about the law that was violated and explain how it was violated. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, if you read the Kenya Airports Authority (KAA) Act on the appointment of the Managing Director, it only says âthere shall be a Managing Director of the Authority who shall be appointed by the Minister after consultation with the Board.â The question which arises is: Did the Minister appoint a Managing Director? If yes, was it in consultation with the Board? There is no specification on how this consultation should be arrived at. So, if the Committee wanted us really to support this Report, they should have told us specifically how the law was violated. We have had similar cases before in this House, where this Parliament has questioned appointments, many of which we have recommended and even challenged the Chief Executive of this country, but rightly so, backed by specific provisions of the law. We have even in the recent past â I think one week ago â recommended the reappointment of a Managing Director of a parastatal under the Ministry of Medical Services, but you could see from the Report of the Committee that they specifically provided the law that was violated. But in this case, there is lack of that provision. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the arguments advanced by my colleagues, especially from that Committee, do not convince me, as a Member of Parliament. First, about the number of days of the advertisement, I thought that this was a re- advertisement. Even so, you could see from the number of applications. A total of 152 applications for such a senior position are sufficient to arrive at a qualified person to man the parastatal. So, I have no problem with the five days, because this is a position of a Chief Executive Officer. It is not a position of a cleaner whom you are going to get from Gwasi Village or in the village where there are no newspapers or radios. A person who is supposed to apply for the position of Managing Director, KAA, should be someone who has a laptop for 24 hours, unless you do not know the position that was being advertised. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, secondly, someone talked about a telephone interview. Some of us have gone through so many telephone interviews even from outside the country for equally very senior positions. I think we need to live with the current human resource practice in this country. This is a current trend. We are moving away from physical presence. We are towards Information Technology way, as Eng. Rege would tell you. There are various ways of interviewing. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the one that really has not gone down well with me is the one that touches on ethnicity. I think it is not my mistake to be born a Luo or Suba for that matter. If we are only going to sacrifice Mr. Gichuki because of some ethnicity--- Personally, I believe that I am a young and progressive leader and I would not support that. Thank God I do not share a tribe with Mr. Gichuki, because if I did somebody would have accused me of doing the same. I do not share that ethnicity and because I am seeing some trends that probably will haunt us even for a long time in this country. I would urge this House to delink ethnicity from our work, if we want to maintain the respect as the supreme organ of this country. Let us try as much and possible to do this. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, lastly, I am one of those people who do not support sentiments from the Executive; that the Legislature is interfering with the work of the Executive. But in the process of discharging our duties, we should also try to be within our mandate, or else we result in what would be termed as witch-hunt and not Parliamentary work. Thank you. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I beg to oppose."
}