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{
    "id": 1049321,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1049321/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 30,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Suba North, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. (Ms.) Odhiambo - Mabona",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 376,
        "legal_name": "Millie Grace Akoth Odhiambo Mabona",
        "slug": "millie-odhiambo-mabona"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker. I rise to support the Referendum Bill with amendments. Having gone through the Bill, I do not understand why it was very controversial because it just strengthens what is in the Constitution. As a House, we always have options to amend the Constitution, if there is something we do not like. So, I really do not think there is anybody who in principle disagrees with the need for a Referendum Bill. Having said that, I want to agree with Hon. Sossion, that we have not taken into account some of the proposed amendments that I would be seeking. We have not proposed or taken into account Article 1(2) of the Constitution that recognises that the people may exercise their sovereign power either directly or through their democratically elected representatives. Should people say, for instance, they want to determine whether they want to leave the East African Community, when we get into that, the Executive will go through the treaty, and then it will come to Parliament. But should people decide that they do not want to go through Parliament and they want to do that on their own, to get out of the treaty, they can propose a referendum. On social issues like whether men should send fare, if Kenyans decided to do that, on a light note, they should do that because those are some of the things that you can do directly. The other issue that I would like to propose an amendment to is that it takes away the power of the promoter which goes against the Bill of Rights because from the spirit of this Bill, it tries in various ways by taking back the referendum question to Parliament to frame the question or to approve the framed question. We already have a parliamentary initiative. So, if Parliament wants to bring a Bill, like I know after this Bill we have Bill by Hon. Shollei, we will still have that and then it can also go for referendum if it is an issue that affects certain issues such as the Bill of 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."
}