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"id": 1028875,
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Kang’ata",
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"id": 1826,
"legal_name": "Irungu Kang'ata",
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"content": "the National Assembly. We would have wanted more, but strictly speaking, BBI did not really touch on Article 96 of the Constitution, which is the one that establishes the jurisdiction of the Senate. Therefore, the power of the Senate to legislate, oversight and make laws concerning counties and represent counties, which is provided for under Article 96 has not been touched. Be that as it may, what we should be fighting for and I belong to that school of thought, is to seek an enhanced role of the Senate going forward. Those of us who support BBI, we may need to re-tweak two things. One, we should consider granting the Senate the power to vet various officials in the Executive for the simple reason that under the BBI, we are proposing to domicile the Executive in the National Assembly. Therefore, you cannot have Cabinet Secretaries sitting in the National Assembly and they are going to be vetted by their colleague Members in the National Assembly. Therefore, if you want fairness and objective vetting, allow the Executive to sit in the National Assembly, but the vetting be done by the Senate because no Senator will be sitting in the Executive. Madam Deputy Speaker, the other thing we may need to consider granting the Senate is the power to initiate any form of Bill. Currently, the so called Money Bills cannot be initiated at the Senate level. As a result, several Bills have gone to the National Assembly and have been torpedoed. They have been deemed to be Money Bills and, therefore, we are unable to proceed with them. To address that lacuna, we need to grant the Senate the power to initiate any form of Bill; whether Money Bill or otherwise. However, on the larger scheme of things, when you look at the BBI, let me tell the nation that the BBI has very positive provisions."
}