Entry Instance

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

{
    "id": 121714,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/121714/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 388,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "PLAN Kenya represented in the board. We have the accountants association, ICPAK, on board and then we have the NGO Council also represented in addition to the directors who were nominated by the owner or the shareholder - the City Council of Nairobi. That, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, allows these institutions to nominate individuals who, somewhat, are beyond reproach; individuals who are accountable to the nominating authority rather than where you have a singular nominating authority. And as we have seen, like now we have more than six Ministries currently bedeviled by appointments, because they are even abrogating procedure to the extent of even dismissing a process that has competitively sought personnel within the country, even Kenyans living in the Diaspora to participate in that recruitment process so that they can fill up these organizations. We are talking about competition here! We have seen Ministers who have gone ahead and scrapped or ignored the submitted names and ended up going to their villages to pick up their campaigners, kin or clansmen to be members. Therefore, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I am saying this because it is important in order to improve corporate governance within State Corporations. It is very important, otherwise we will continue having problems not because the appointing authorities so desire, but because we can easily be captives of our own networks. The third point, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, is the need to also harvest from the critical mass of professionals. If you go to the financial sector or to the civil society – the third sector; if you go to the faiths sector or the religious sector, you will find a lot of charismatic, educated, energetic and vibrant young people. In this Bill, it provides for the Minister to appoint those other five individuals. It does not say two things; number one, I have not seen where it says – and if it does, I will be corrected – that amongst those individuals, there will be adherence to the presidential directives, and the very expectations of good governance campaigners – that there will be gender balance in that board. So you may end up having Permanent Secretaries (PSs) from the two Ministries who are male. You may also end up having an Attorney-General who is male. The winner of the Director-General; position may also be male - those are already four seats. Now, for the five remaining seats, you could have a Minister who is not very gender sensitive and focused and he or she may end up appointing five males to sit on that Board. Although it might be impossible to go to the nitty gritties, it does no harm to have those criteria considered ahead. That way, the vulnerability of such appointments will not be experienced and the appointing authority will not get tempted."
}