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{
    "id": 1065259,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1065259/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 220,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Omogeni",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13219,
        "legal_name": "Erick Okong'o Mogeni",
        "slug": "erick-okongo-mogeni"
    },
    "content": "The Senate has got no power to summon the Prime Minister to appear before this House and answer any questions on behalf of the Government. We also found it to be a bit quire that the impeachment of the Prime Minister will be dealt with to conclusion by the National Assembly unlike the case for the President and the Deputy President which starts from the National Assembly but finds its way to the Senate. Therefore, we have made a strong observation that there is a sustained campaign by some people to weaken the powers of the Senate. We have proposed that going forward, we need to look for interventions to ensure that this House is not rendered moribund. Madam Deputy Speaker, we also considered something that we thought is a big claw back on accountability and we made a strong finding as a Committee that it is an undesirable state of affairs. Clause 29 proposes to delete the powers given to the National Assembly to vet Cabinet Secretaries (CSs). The view of the Committee was that whereas it may not be necessary or desirable to vet CSs who are elected MPs, the non-elected Members who will be appointed to the Cabinet ought to be vetted. The view of the Committee is that since Government will be domiciled in the National Assembly, instead of deleting that power of vetting, it should have been transferred to the Senate. We also took issue with Clause 32, which proposes to amend Article 154(2). For reasons that were not clear to us as a Committee, there is now a proposal to amend the powers of National Assembly to vet the Secretary to the Cabinet. That has been deleted. The implication is that, henceforth, you will just read in the newspaper that the President has appointed the Secretary to the Cabinet. There was a strong view that now that the Executive will be domiciled in the National Assembly, this is power that ought to have been transferred to the Senate. This is because bicameral Parliament is about balance of power between the two Houses. The third one was Clause 33, which proposes to amend Article 155 by totally removing the power of the National Assembly to vet persons who are appointed to positions of Permanent Secretaries. Again, this removes the issue of accountability. The doctrine of separation of powers and limited Government is that the Executive should have the power to appoint but also Parliament should retain the power to scrutinize the suitability of persons who are picked to occupy some of these positions. As we stand today, the BBI has proposed that there will be no vetting at all of Permanent Secretaries. We were of the view that this is power that ought to have been given to the Senate and there should not have been this blanket deletion of these vetting powers. Madam Deputy Speaker, there was a Clause that invited a lot of debate. This is the first time that you will find us using a strong term declaring a particular Clause in this BBI as being unconstitutional. That is Clause 43, which proposes an amendment to Article 172, by introducing Clause 172(1) (c) (a). We had a long debate. We looked at the history this country has gone through in trying to build an independent and professional Judiciary. We made reference to the Kreigler Report where it was pointed out that, part of the reasons why we had post- The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}