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{
    "id": 1175225,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1175225/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 204,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Tongaren, FORD-K",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. (Dr.) Eseli Simiyu",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 141,
        "legal_name": "David Eseli Simiyu",
        "slug": "david-eseli"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Speaker, for this chance to also contribute. First and foremost, I would like to thank the good people of Tongaren Constituency who have elected me to this House three times now. I assure them that I will diligently continue working for them. This 12th Parliament has been very interesting. I thank the Members for what they have done in the dying minutes and days of this Parliament. That, finally, they have agreed that the NG-CDF should be shared equitably. This has been my cry for the last five years. I have had a nasty experience whereby my neighbouring constituencies in Bungoma County are half the size of my constituency yet we get the same amount of money. That makes service delivery very difficult for me. I thank this Parliament that we have finally arisen to what the Constitution dictates, that national resources should be shared equitably. That is the Constitution. I would like to urge that those of us who will be back in the 13th Parliament really look at this issue of gender balance, the two-thirds gender principle. It is a constitutional thing that we should not have more than two-thirds of any elective house being of one gender. We have a difficulty because the electoral law that is supposed to operationalise that is a law for first-past- the-post. It is impossible to fulfil the two-thirds gender rule using the first-past-the-post electoral laws. The next Parliament should consider relooking at the electoral law and either adopt a proportional representation system or a mixed-member proportional representation and first-past- the-post, a mixed-member kind of proportional representation so that we attain that two-thirds gender rule as dictated by the Constitution. Without that, every Chief Justice is going to be asked to dissolve this House. Every Chief Justice will be asking the President to dissolve this House. We need to solve that matter once and for all. I would like to agree with Hon. Kanini Kega that sometimes we have fallen short of the expected dignity of MPs. I have been a victim of colleagues coming to my constituency and abusing me. What amuses me is that the colleagues doing this are actually first timers while I am a third timer. It is really a shame. It is good to inform the colleague that you are visiting and then go about your business without calling your colleague names and things like those. It is not a very good thing to do. There has been talk about the attrition rate in this House. Yes, it is high. One of the reasons is that when you have been in Parliament for five years, given the way our people take an MP to be, you will have been spending a lot of money throughout. By the time campaigns come, your pockets are dry and the new comers have a lot of money. That is one of the contributors to the high attrition rate. While that is said and done, there are parts of this country where the attrition rate is not that high. The 70 per cent attrition is a global figure. When you look at the Western region, that is Nyanza and Western, that attrition falls to below 40 per cent. It actually differs from one part of the country to the other. We need to carefully look at the cause of this high attrition rate. That high attrition rate means that the institutional memory that comes into the next Parliament is curtailed. Hon. Speaker, finally, I wish you well in your endeavours. You have guided this House for the last two Parliaments. I wish you well in your next endeavours even if it means coming back here. I believe the people of Kenya will always look up to you favourably. Thank you, Hon. Speaker."
}