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{
    "id": 1211519,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1211519/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 229,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Baringo North, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Joseph Makilap",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "we were inducted in the House, we were told it is free sitting. What does that mean? It means that each of us has an opportunity to check and oversight the Government. Therefore, on the matter of the leader of opposition, there is much to be done. If we want the leader of opposition to be in this House, let us change the law so that presidential and deputy presidential aspirants can run as Members of Parliament or Senators. This way, they can come to the House as the Leader of the Majority Party or the Leader of the Minority Party. But just to imagine that the leader of opposition comes to this House where we already have a Leader of the Minority Party is a clash of the law does not require a neurosurgeon. This is a fact and let us act on facts of law so that we try to address the winner-takes-it-all issue. The President means well for this country, but the lawyers who are supposed to advise him and bring order are not doing so properly. I say that with a lot of sincerity. Let me address the matter of the oversight funds. We had already started a process and we were on the right track to ensure that the NG-CDF and the NGAAF are in the Constitution. We do not want to come back and use this Memorandum to achieve what we want. Let the process of anchoring the NG-CDF and the NGAAF proceed as it was to the end. With that, we shall achieve the results immediately. On the Senate Oversight Fund, we should be knowledgeable enough. It is not about the Senate. The people who are trying to sell this to the Senate are giving them false hope because it is believed that the NG-CDF belongs to Members of Parliament. The NG-CDF does not belong to us. It belongs to the people of Kenya. Our work should be to oversight the NG-CDF. In this House, when we struggle to ensure that the NG-CDF is anchored in law, it is not because these are our funds. It is because these are resources to implement programs at the constituency level; programs that are not captured in the Fourth Schedule and functions that belong to the national Government that are not catered for by the county governments. If you create a Senate Oversight Fund, then Parliament will also demand for a National Assembly Oversight Fund. If we want to create an oversight fund, let us call it the Parliamentary Oversight Fund so that all Members of Parliament, in the Senate and the National Assembly, benefit from it. These two are clashing. We need to ask ourselves to what extent should Senators oversee county governments? We have members of county assemblies (MCAs) who are legislators mandated to do day-to-day oversight of county governments. So, to what extent will the Senators’ oversight role go? Let us face facts as they are. The MCAs are supposed to oversee the governors, the County Executive Committee Members (CECs) and the expenditure of the counties. At the national level, we oversee the national Executive. To what extent do Senators oversee county governments in this country? These are facts. Whether you are in Kenya Kwanza or Azimio la Umoja-One Kenya Alliance, these are the facts. Hon. Temporary Speaker, for the purposes of the NGAAF, I support this 100 per cent because the women in this Parliament also want to address matters that are peculiar to them. It will come a time when there will be more women than men in this Parliament and we will want representation. Now, the NGAAF is not an oversight fund for women. It is a fund that women in Parliament are overseeing that tries to address inadequacies on the ground that affect children, women, and everyone else. On the issue of the two-thirds gender rule, I want us to be alive to Article 38 of the Constitution. In the bill of rights, every Kenyan has a right. Any amendment that touches on the bill of rights must go to a referendum and not through a parliamentary initiative. What does this mean? It means that we do not want to engage in the ping-pong business like what happened with the BBI. Therefore, to address the two-thirds gender rule in this House, this must be done outside the confines of the Constitution, through Parliament, within the confines of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) and the political parties of Kenya. 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."
}