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{
    "id": 1065577,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1065577/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 44,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mwea, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Josphat Kabinga",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13441,
        "legal_name": "Josphat Kabinga Wachira",
        "slug": "josphat-kabinga-wachira-2"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Speaker for giving me the chance to contribute to this very important Bill. This is one of my happiest moments. Since I came to this House, I have been complaining about representation. I have been complaining that I have a constituency that is too large with eight wards and 237,000 people getting the same resources as constituencies with three wards. I am very happy that we are heading towards correcting that particular situation. For that reason, I support this amendment Bill. The journey towards this particular Bill is well-known to most of us. A number of us have decided not to acknowledge where the country was when this particular thought came about. In 2017, when the current President, Uhuru Kenyatta, was elected and the Right Honourable Raila Odinga was sworn in as the people’s president, that was a tempting moment for the President. He had two options. He could either let it go and think of how to come up with a solution to the same or send troops, the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) and the police to Uhuru Park to scuttle the meeting. You can imagine what would have happened that day. The President, in his own wisdom, chose not to go the violent way. He started a journey from there. The journey was about making use of Article 131(2)(c) to bring peace and harmony to this country. In his own wisdom, he started a journey of stretching out his hand to Right Hon. Raila Odinga to ensure that this country settled and got the peace that was much needed at that time. That was the solution provided by the President of this country. People who oppose the same - and they are here with us - have never attempted to tell us what would have been the best solution. They only criticise the same. They say it should not have happened, but have never told us what would have been the solution to bring peace to this country. As a man of peace, I thought that was the best and most welcome decision by our President then. The journey continued and we had eminent men and women, including the late Senator Yusuf Haji, God rest his soul in peace, who spearheaded the process of coming up with this document. Some of us who were interested followed it up step by step. Some in this House decided to ignore it from the word go. They ignored it until the Bill came up. This is a great moment. I am seeing some faces that are very rarely seen in this House. I have heard voices of people whom I have never heard since I was elected. This is an indicator of how important this particular Bill is, and we should all embrace it. I want to go straight to what I see as the Article that people are misusing and confusing our people out there. That is Article 89 that touches on constituencies. The promoters of this Bill, in their own wisdom, proposed to add 70 constituencies to this country. That was their proposal. The same promoters, in their own wisdom, decided to come up with a scientific, and not a political or 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."
}