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{
    "id": 1018755,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1018755/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 608,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Orengo",
    "speaker_title": "The Senate Minority Leader",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 129,
        "legal_name": "Aggrey James Orengo",
        "slug": "james-orengo"
    },
    "content": "I want to commend the Members of the Standing Committee on Finance and Budget and the Mediation Committee. I photocopied part of the record of this House and I want to table the debates we had in June, 2019, on 11th and 17th September, 2019. If you read what every Senator said that time and if the governors had read what we said at that time, they would not have allowed the allocation to be less than Kshs350 billion this year. However, we have done better than them and increased the allocation for the next financial year to Kshs370 billion. I hope that we will come together and reason together in this conversation. Martin Luther King Jr, who I respect, said- “Only when it is dark enough can you see the stars” When it looked like the Senate was divided, it was not division. I am one of the students of dialectical materialism as a logic. Until you have a thesis and antithesis, you cannot get a proper synthesis. You have to have two arguments from both sides and that is what all science is about. This world is based on friction. Without friction, there cannot be many things that we take for granted. That is the law of science. Even to produce children, the law of friction applies. There is a constant universal struggle between man and man, man and woman, woman and woman and between man and nature. Dialectics are very important as a rule of logic to enable us reach where we are. I want to be grateful for whatever formations we had, including Team Kenya and Team Katiba. I can tell you that if we had a world where everybody says, yes, this Senate is not a Church where you come in and ask people to close their eyes and say amen. No, we can never close our eyes. We will keep our eyes open at every moment and every time. These divisions are the very principle of democracy. Somebody said in the United States of America (USA) that demonstrations are part of democracy in America. As I conclude, I am now talking as Sen. Orengo, free speech is a central pillar of our democracy, inside and outside the Senate. I am hoping that everybody who wants Kenya to move forward, the medicine of bringing law and order is not to curtail free speech. In order to bring democracy in this country, when somebody says something that you do not agree with, you should have more free speech since that is the only way of resolving issues. In this Kenyan tent, we need to think about other things that are happening because if we do not have free speech, which is central to operations of Parliament, we will be moving backwards. However, I am glad that at least President Uhuru Kenyatta has looked over this particular issue and said we must come up with a formula that is good for all Kenyans."
}