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{
    "id": 1057731,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1057731/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 73,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kathiani, WDM-K",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Robert Mbui",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1750,
        "legal_name": "Robert Mbui",
        "slug": "robert-mbui"
    },
    "content": "Hon. Speaker, many of these have been picked from the Statutory Instruments Act which is basically used by the Committee on Delegated Legislation of this House and also for regulation- making authorities at the national level. In my observation of that Act, I have seen certain flaws, maybe not completely negative, but certain things they have picked which I think they needed to have thought through. The first one is in the definition of a statutory instrument. The definition is extremely wide because it talks about 'any rule, order, regulation, direction, form, tariff of costs of fees, letters, patent, commission, warrant, proclamation, resolution and guideline. All those. Those are so wide such that anything a CEC or a governor does from their office suddenly seems to be a regulation. That is one of the problems we have been having even at the national level. There are so many things that Cabinet Secretaries would do and we are not too sure how exactly to handle them. They pass proclamations and guidelines in their offices and say that is not one of the things that should come to the House. A case in point was when the National Treasury decided that you could not deposit or withdraw more than a certain amount of money. That was a guideline. Unfortunately, it did not come to the House as a regulation yet clearly, it had the force of law and imparts on many people and how they do business. Therefore, I think they needed to have considered to reduce the wide definition, so that it is very specific to the things that are going to affect county business. The other issue that has been canvassed by my colleagues is that of public participation; the threshold. This is one of the problems we have constantly faced because when it comes to public participation, the question is who must be consulted. Many times you find that it seems like everybody must be consulted. Even when we put it out to the public and even if people do not respond to the adverts, there is always that argument that so and so, or such and such a sector is affected, and therefore, they should have been given an opportunity. This definition needs to be clear in terms of exactly who should participate to be consulted in consideration before making statutory instrument. Hon. Speaker, another issue we have noted is many times the regulation- making authorities would avoid the regulatory impact statement. That is a statement that confirms to the public whether it is going to be expensive for the public and what it would cost the public. Many times they want to avoid that. In fact, many statutory instruments brought to this House do not even have the regulatory impact assessment because they always try to wiggle out of it. Therefore, this is important and I think it is important that county assemblies follow through. Finally, it is the issue of scrutinising a statutory instrument by county assemblies. There needs to be that pre-publication scrutiny. I would advise county assemblies when this law passes to ensure that before any regulation is published, they go through a pre-publication scrutiny. We have noted that many times regulation-making authorities would go ahead and publish in the"
}