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{
    "id": 1211765,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1211765/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 184,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kajiado County, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Leah Sankaire",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "not built in a day and it is obvious that we are not yet there but we will get there. It is public knowledge that very few women could previously stand in Parliament and speak but as you can see, the numbers are increasing by the day. We are getting there slowly and I know that with the help of this seat that we currently have, the numbers will increase. I would like to speak to the second issue in the memorandum touching on the NG- CDF, Senate Oversight Fund and NGAAF. We know what happened recently and I do not think that the current and future Members would want to go through that again. I believe we are all in agreement that these funds should be anchored in the Constitution so that it is a constitutional obligation as opposed to us wasting a lot of time lobbying for them. We know what the country is going through. We have drought in all the parts of the country. You saw how long it took us to address the issue of bursaries and this is simply because the funds are not anchored in the Constitution. I believe we are all in agreement that it is about time we anchored them in the Constitution so that no Parliament will have to go through what we went through the other day. On the position of the Leader of the Official Opposition, this is something that we can also work on. In the previous governments, we have seen the Leader of the Opposition having handshake with the President thus bringing a lot of confusion in the running of Parliament. In my view, it is good that their position is defined once and for all. I am saying this knowing that any person can be a Leader of the Opposition at any given time. Therefore, it is good that their position, responsibility and power is defined. This is necessary so that we do not see any more handshakes that bring a lot of confusion to an extent that people do not know what side they belong to. You do not know whether you support the Government or you are against it. We must create this balance. It is good that we create this position and give it the power and resources that it deserves so that they can actually oversee Government. I believe the work of the Opposition is to oversee Government. When you have an active Opposition overseeing the Government, then everything will go well. On parliamentary oversight on the Executive, it is good that we have our Cabinet Secretaries come to Parliament so that we can ask questions. I believe the reason we had a lot of confusion on disbursement of our allocations recently is because we were receiving information from a third party. The Leader of the Majority Party was being sent to deliver information but because we did not have a one on one talk with the Cabinet Secretary in charge, it was hard for us to know our position and to get to know where we were. In my view, when the Cabinet Secretaries come to Parliament and answer questions, we will have accountability. We can then hold them accountable because they would be on record that they spoke this and made promises making it easy for us to follow up on undertakings made. Hon. Deputy Speaker, with that contribution, I thank you."
}