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{
    "id": 1201464,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1201464/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 544,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Okiya Omtatah",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, on the issue of judicial independence, there is autonomy of the Judiciary as an institution financed. However, the most critical is the independence of the individual judge who sits, listens to cases and makes decisions. From past experience, I do not see how that is being addressed. I have seen judges who stand on their feet being thrown out of Nairobi and being transferred to discreet addresses to prevent them from making decisions that attract the limelight. We would like to see that kind of lack of independence in the Judiciary addressed. Funding of the Judiciary is long overdue. It is a constitutional imperative that the Judiciary fund be set up as has rightly been observed. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, as I stand here, I wish His Excellency William Samoei Ruto, the 5th President of Kenya, the best of everything from his personal health, to his ideas and to his policies. If he performs and succeeds, Kenya succeeds. If he fails, Kenya fails. As a House, I believe that the Presidency is a distinct institution from the House. In this House, we must hold his Government to account, oversight him and control the purse. With the power of the purse, if we work together in a bipartisan manner, the way the President pleaded in his speech, that bipartisanship should ensure that we contain the excesses of the Presidency. We are not in the traditional mould of an opposition and a governing party. We are in the mould of an elected Executive oversighted by an elected House. The two are independent of each other. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, mine is to wish everybody the best and to pray that God who created us and put us on this earth to live for a very short time, is able to use us for the purpose he created us for. We may be instruments of peace and a people who can develop this country. The best way to develop this country is to imitate the developed countries. Let us imitate what those people have done and we shall also develop. Reinventing the wheel will get us nowhere. The blueprint is there. What kind of banking and education do we have? How many engineers are we having? Are we closing technical colleges so as to create universities? How are we training technicians and our farmers? How are we doing research? The lands that belonged to our research institutions such as Agricultural Development Corporation (ADC) and Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) were grabbed. All these lands must be given back to those institutions if the President wants to turn this country around and push it ahead. It cannot be business as usual."
}