Entry Instance

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

{
    "id": 1197435,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1197435/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 321,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kitui Central, WDM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. (Dr.) Makali Mulu",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "she did not have technical and administrative capacity. I want to remind Kenyans and my colleagues that most of the work of a CS is policy, strategic and political direction, which is very critical. I do not think that you need to be an expert in engineering to be the CS for Transport. When you look at this Report, there are nominees who allegedly have criminal cases; Peninah Malonza was not alleged to have any criminal case in the country. There are nominees who have corruption-related allegations; Peninah Malonza has no allegations to do with corruption. There are nominees who have allegations to do with murder; Peninah Malonza has no allegations to do with murder in this country. There were also doubts as to whether the papers of some nominees were genuine; Peninah Malonza’s papers were assessed to be genuine. Despite all that, people with corruption-related allegations, those with criminal cases – even though they are allegations – and those whose papers did not seem to be genuine, have been approved by this Committee, yet Peninah Malonza, who seems to have no issue at all, is said not to be qualified to be a CS. Those are double standards. As Parliament, we cannot allow that. I heard one Committee Member say that as Parliament, we must be seen to be doing our work by saying no to some nominees. I do not think we can do that as Parliament. It is unfortunate that we can only be seen to be working when one nominee is not approved, and others are. Fairness demands that we either approve all of them or disapprove all of them. Some of them have worse cases compared to Peninah Malonza’s case. Peninah Malonza is from my county. This is a lady I have known for many years. She was the first Deputy Governor of Kitui County. She is someone I have interacted with. The only reason she has not been approved by the Committee is that she could not make a presentation. We are talking about inclusion. I was asking myself: If we get a nominee who is not able to talk, hear or one with some disability, does it mean that this House will not approve him or her? We cannot accept these double standards. I was not very happy with the way the Motion was being moved. The Majority Leader, Hon. Kimani Ichung’wah was trying to move the Motion in an amended form, yet he never told the House that he was moving it in an amended form. I would want to recommend that as we approach the day of voting, which is tomorrow, we need to have this Motion amended to read as follows: “THAT, this House does approve all the names as presented by the Committee including Peninah Malonza.” That is my prayer. If we do it that way, we will have done justice to this country, so we do not seem to disadvantage any of the nominees for reasons which do not seem to be strong enough to warrant rejecting a nominee."
}