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{
    "id": 1211138,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1211138/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 135,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kitui Central, WDM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. (Dr) Makali Mulu",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you very much, Hon. Speaker. I want to add my voice to this debate on proposals by the President. A number of things have been proposed in the President’s Memorandum. Some of them make a lot of sense, and others are contentious. Let me run through the issues one by one. The issue of the two-thirds gender principle has been in this House for a long time. We have tried our best to get it right. Any time it gets to voting, it always falls short of expectation. I think it is time we changed tact on this issue. It is important that we come up with a different strategy to achieve the expected goal. The two-thirds gender principle is important to this country, but the strategies we have been using in the past will not give us the results. If we go the same way again, I do not think this House will be expecting different results. The committee concerned will have to seriously think about a different strategy so that we can get a different result. The matter of official opposition has been adequately canvassed by the legal minds in this House. And what has come out clearly is the fact that this matter might be unconstitutional. If our legal minds have said that, it is important that we are seen to be operating within the Constitution. All of us in this House have sworn to protect the Constitution, and so we must make sure that we do things correctly and not be accused of going against the Constitution. The proposal to allow cabinet secretaries in the House is another contentious issue. Our Constitution is very clear that cabinet secretaries are appointed from out of the House. They do not belong to the House. During the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI), we proposed that cabinet secretaries come from the House. We all know what happened. I do not think it will be fair for us as a House to sneak this matter through the backdoor. We will be seen to be acting unconstitutionally in terms of addressing this matter. This matter will still need sober discourse so that at the end of the day, we operate within the law. My take is that if as a country we want to go the presidential system, then let us agree to go the presidential system as we have agreed. If we want to go the parliamentary system, it is important we choose the parliamentary system. We should not have a mixed system which might not help this country. Always there are what we call best practices and we must make sure that we do not do things that appear as if we have no idea of what should be done. I do not want to talk much about the NG-CDF matters. There is a proposal to have oversight funds. The Auditor-General, in her reports, has come out clearly over the years to say that a lot of public resources are not used prudently. Every year we get these reports and conclude that a third of the budget appropriated in this House ends up either being misused or misdirected. At the end of the day, Kenyans do not get value for money. If we are to apply the same formula to the counties, it means that about 30 per cent of the resources we send to county governments face the same fate. We are talking about Ksh370 billion. So, on average, Ksh120 billion ends up not properly utilised every year. Some of the money might be misdirected and some might find its way to individuals’ pockets. So, the idea of an oversight fund is very important and it should be applicable at the Senate, the National Assembly and at the county assemblies, so that anyone involved in oversight has adequate resources to do their work. At the national level, we are told that about Ksh1 trillion ends up not being applied properly. At the county level, about Kshs120 billion is not applied in The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}