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{
    "id": 1087121,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1087121/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 140,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Cheruiyot",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13165,
        "legal_name": "Aaron Kipkirui Cheruiyot",
        "slug": "aaron-cheruiyot"
    },
    "content": "If you read through this Bill and it is a very brief Bill which any one can read through and understand what Sen. (Dr.) Zani wants to achieve. I believe all of us should support her in achieving this. You realize that longevity has its place in terms of growth as a parliamentarian. It is only somebody who has been in this Parliament for the kind of period that Sen. (Dr.) Zani has been who will begin to ask themselves: What is the place of Parliament in terms of the resolutions, Bills of Parliament? It is not for lack of good laws that Kenya is where it is. Our weakness and waterloo as a Republic has been found to be in the space of either implementation or follow-through on what has been agreed upon. This is a proper follow-through of trying to ensure that when a House passes a resolution; that when an Bill of Parliament has been secured into an Act and promulgated into one, that then it achieves the purpose for which it was intended to. As things stand today you can name so many brilliant reports that we have done as a Senate. Unfortunately, once the House adopts, either as has been proposed or even sometimes as might be the case with amendments, that becomes the end of that particular report. It is often quoted yet a parliamentary report, a resolution of this House is actually a constitutional provision. That is what our Constitution expects of us, that immediately a House resolves, then it is considered to be the law of the land. I do not believe that it was the thoughts of the crafters of our Constitution that that force of law is only in Acts of Parliament; that even in resolutions of reports of committees, even when a Member rises to seek a Statement and the Speaker gives direction and the House agrees with the Speaker, then it has the force of law. Unfortunately, due to the loophole that is now being sealed by our colleague, Sen. (Dr.) Zani, many things have not been resolved as Parliament would have wished. I can quote many reports that we know, when a particular matter came up in any particular sector. I was struggling when I was reading this particular Bill to think of any sector in this country that currently is faced with various challenges for which Parliament has not spent taxpayers money to either investigate and come up with a report, but where are those reports? What is the implementation status? It is until you set up an office such as the one which is being proposed in this particular Bill that you will have somebody that you can hold responsible and charge them with that particular responsibility and say it is your duty to ensure, for example, that once we have passed a law, a resolution as a House on a particular matter; once a committee report has indicted a particular officer, within seven days as is being proposed in this particular Bill, that person is informed and they know, this is what Parliament expects them to do. Therefore, I congratulate my colleague, Sen. (Dr.) Zani, for bringing this very good proposal. I have made this point in many occasions that I debated in this House."
}