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{
    "id": 1197377,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1197377/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 263,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Suna East, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Junet Mohammed",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Speaker for giving me an opportunity to contribute to this Motion. I am a Member of the Committee on Appointments that vetted the nominees. We took a lot of our time to make sure we look into this matter using a very good perspective. Why did we do that? It is because this is the highest decision-making organ of the country – the Cabinet of the Republic of Kenya. If I can give my views on what was presented before the Committee, the Report that we prepared as a Committee is very clear. The Constitution says that when appointments are made in this country, we must look into issues of regional balance, ethnic balance and issues that can bring cohesion. If you look at the appointments of these CSs, we now have a Cabinet consisting of 24 members. If you look at the composition of these members, the region where the President comes from has four ministers. If you include the President that is a total of five. The region where the Deputy President comes from has nine ministers including himself. If you add nine to five, they become 14. The total number is 24. All the other parts of the country have ten Cabinet Ministers only ambao wametupiwa mahindi kama kuku. When will a Turkana, Borana, Kuria and Pokot be Minister in this country? If every election cycle we have the President’s region getting nine ministers and the Deputy President’s region getting five ministers meaning that the other parts of the country have to share ten posts.... If that is not unfair, what do you call unfairness? This must stop! It is unconstitutional and an affront to the Constitution of this country. That is why the Constitution speaks to the issue of regional balance, ethnic balance and cohesion of this country. On that note, these appointments lack the constitutional merit that is required. We have vetted the persons and some of them are distinguished and outstanding. I agree with the Committee that some of them merit to be Cabinet Secretaries. They qualified and passed the standards that we were looking for as a Committee. A few of them, however, and as we have noted in our Minority Report, are substandard. You talk about the Cabinet of the Republic of Kenya yet you want to have a Cabinet Secretary who has a live capital offence case, murder, in court seated there. How do you expect this House to approve that person unless we have lost our minds? It is very clear and important for the image of this country for that nominee to step aside, clear her cases in court and once she has finished…"
}