Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 1193172,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1193172/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 298,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Cheruiyot",
    "speaker_title": "The Senate Majority Leader",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13165,
        "legal_name": "Aaron Kipkirui Cheruiyot",
        "slug": "aaron-cheruiyot"
    },
    "content": "subsistence allowance or any other, it rightfully belongs to them because the work of an MP is not easy. The unfortunate thing is that until you serve as an MP, you may not understand the work that MPs do. I was hoping that when moving this Motion, my good friend, Sen. Okiya Omtatah, would be in the House. I would like to have a conversation with him three months after he has served as an MP. This is nothing personal because he said he was working for Kenyans. I also told him I was serving MPs. An MP is basically a social welfare machine to the citizens. It is the only job in the world where for every phone call that you pick, for example, if you pick 100 phone calls, by midmorning, you would have known whatever it entails. There is a funny story from where I come from about one of the longest serving MPs. After he had retired after 30 years of being in Parliament, he proposed to two of his sons to join politics in order to protect all the wealth that he had amassed over the years. Of course, the sons were what the people of this city call “cool kids”. They were wondering why he wanted them to join such a profession where you are bothered every now and then. After some coercion, the younger one accepted to join politics. He told his father that before he joins politics, there was only one problem that he did not know how to go about. The father asked about the problem and he said that he does not know how to speak the local language and wondered how he would attend to the constituents. The father told him not to worry about that. He advised him to just keep quiet when they speak to him and eventually ask them “how much” when they finish. By the time he left Parliament, that Member had served for 10 good years. That means that the father knew that in every conversation, it boils down to one thing. That is the challenge in the life of an MP. That is what the PSC is supposed to do. I would like to prepare the seven colleagues nominated as Commissioners of the PSC. There will be difficult times where you will have to make unpopular decisions. It is not easy to face Kenyans and tell them that MPs deserve a better pay. It is not even easy to tell them that it is unfair that a Senator representing several constituencies earns the same salary as a Member of the National Assembly who represents a single constituency. That is the conversation that we shall continue to have with the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) until the Senate gets to its rightful place. I know that on many occasions, colleagues have spoken about what they feel about these particular issues. I wish you well, colleagues, as you prepare to start serving us in the Parliamentary Service Commission. Please, defend the integrity of this House. I want to challenge you colleagues. Unfortunately, we have a constitutional flaw which we may have to address in the future. The Chairperson of the Parliamentary Service Commission is also the Speaker of the National Assembly. By the definition of the work that they do, we see each other as rivals. There is the sibling rivalry between the two Houses that cannot go away. If you need to decide on whether a matter can go one way or the other, as the chairperson, of course, the natural thing is that you will side with where your bread is buttered. The unfortunate thing is that the Speaker of the Senate does not sit in the PSC. Therefore, there is nobody of equal standing as the Speaker of the National Assembly"
}