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"id": 1113532,
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Seme, ODM",
"speaker_title": "Hon. (Dr.) James Nyikal",
"speaker": {
"id": 434,
"legal_name": "James Nyikal",
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"content": "Now, when we come to regulatory boards, you find that the representatives of the various professions are appointed by the Cabinet Secretary. In fact, if you read all of them, they are Principal Secretaries and then, I think, there are three people appointed by the Cabinet Secretary. Therefore, the professionals that are the stakeholders are not represented. Obviously, those people appointed in that manner will have their allegiance to the Cabinet Secretary and not to the interest of the profession. I think there is something wrong with that constitutionally in terms of representation. Hon. Speaker, there is another issue that I think is wrong here, which is the principle of self-regulation. If you have a regulatory authority and the professionals who are the people with technical content are few, say, two or three appointed by an authority like the Ministry, and the quorum you put is such that even in their absence the deliberations can go on, it is quite possible that you will have a situation where you are even looking at an issue of professional conduct and yet the people are not there. So, how are you going to have self-regulation? How are you going to know if someone said they did not look after a patient properly? Do you expect lay people to know whether they did not look after the patient properly? You certainly need technical input. Hon. Speaker, in my view, a third violation is that this Bill fails to make the distinction that the Leader of the Majority Party was talking about. When you have regulatory boards, their structures must obviously be different from boards that are managerial, like KEMSA, where you have a lot of Government money. The KEMSA gives service. You need representation of all the people there like accountants and auditors. That is okay. However, when you are dealing with a body that is regulating professionals whose income is not even from State coffers, but by members’ subscription and contributions, then, why do you want to bring in all these other people? Normally, their funds are not often that much. So, why is that necessary? The fourth point is that you get the impression that in the management of the health sector or any other sector, you need not have the technical information. There is a strange thing happening in this country. We have the Director-General who is serving in an acting position, but when he goes to the World Health Organisation (WHO), which is the actual custodian of health, he is the Chair of the Executive Board of WHO. The Chair of the Executive Board of WHO is the boss of the Director-General of WHO. He is the boss, but in this country, he is serving in an acting capacity. We realise that there is a general feeling that technical input is not really required in the management sector. Let me say that if you take all the Ministries, what distinguishes one Ministry from another is the technical arm. The management arm of the Ministry that consists of the PS, the finance officer, the accountant and all those procurement people are the same in all Ministries. What will distinguish them is when you have the technical people, namely, the Director of Water and the Director of Agriculture. If you start saying that in certain bodies you do not need those technical people, then what is the source of your information? The other day we said that we do not need the Director-General in the Board of the National Hospital Insurance Fund and yet all the money that is being collected is used to purchase health. Who is going to advise that body on what health to purchase?"
}