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{
    "id": 1166133,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1166133/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 315,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. M. Kajwang’",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13162,
        "legal_name": "Moses Otieno Kajwang'",
        "slug": "moses-otieno-kajwang"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, I said earlier that we must distinguish between literacy and basic education. That is where I have a problem with the Sen. Murkomen’s amendment. I made it clear that I do not support the degree requirement but Sen. Murkomen is proposing that we move away from the basic education to basic literacy. Before the Act was amended in 2017, it required a post-secondary qualification. Sen. Murkomen does not even talk of post-secondary, secondary or primary education. According to him, as long as you are able to read and write in English or Swahili, then you can come to Parliament. I have a problem with that. What are the duties of a legislator? It is to legislate, represent and oversight. For you to be a good legislator, you do not need a PhD or a degree because, as I said, this Parliament has got very robust structures. We hope those structures can be replicated across our county governments. You need to have basic education to be a good legislator. However, I do not subscribe that for you to be a good legislator, all you need to do is to speak in English, Kiswahili or the Kenya Sign Language (KSL). There must be evidence that you went to a school and came out with some qualifications. At the end of the day, the Government is a complex organization that even if you went and studied metalwork at post-secondary, there will be something about metalwork that will be discussed in this House. The other duty of an MP or MCA is to represent. Again, you do not need a PhD to be a good representative. What you need is basic education to represent your people well. You must be in a position to sit with the Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) or health workers in your respective domain and have a basic understanding of some of their concerns so that you can represent them. In my view, to reduce the requirement to just speaking English or Kiswahili is dropping the bar too low. The other responsibility is to oversight. You need certain basic skills to carry out oversight. You do not need to a PhD because there are specialized institutions. We have got the Auditor-General, the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC), the Ombudsman and several other constitutional institutions that have been established. We are not saying that a perfect MP is a guy with a PhD in everything. A perfect MP is a guy with basic education, compassion, empathy, and a heart of his people that he holds dear and brings their issues to the House. The other duty of an MCA or an MP is in budgeting. Once more, you do not need to be a Certified Public Accountant (CPA-K) or Fellow Member of Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (FCCA) because you will have the Controller of Budget (CoB) and several bodies supporting you. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, as I conclude, I do not support the lowering of the bar to basic literacy, but I support the establishment of the bar to basic education. That is the Elections Act before it was amended in 2017. Let the record be clear. I do not support reduction of minimum qualifications to reading and writing in English or Kiswahili. I support the re-introduction of the provision of basic education, which is a post-secondary qualification and not a university qualification."
}