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{
    "id": 1217399,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1217399/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 680,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mukurweini, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Kaguchia John",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Hon. Temporary Speaker, one of the reasons as to why we are in this Assembly is to legislate. One of the things we intend to do is to legislate as per the proposals that His Excellency the President brought to the House on how we can make this position formal for posterity. The question that you have raised is an important one. We will eventually deliberate on it. We are actually reviewing the Constitution to see how we can include provisions that will allow what you have asked so that we have the Leader of the official Opposition formally in this Assembly. Our work is to legislate and we are going to do exactly that. This is necessary so that we can be able to make this possible. Hon. Temporary Speaker, there is also the proposal on compliance with the two-thirds gender rule. To be able to achieve this in our new dispensation, I want to make this further proposal. This is also one of the things that we are going to be looking at when we will be implementing this two-thirds gender rule in Parliament through the constitutional change that we are proposing. I propose that, because of the costs that are involved in selecting or nominating many women leaders to balance the gender, we give precedence to nominating people with disabilities, those representing ethnic minorities and other special interest categories. They should be given priority in nomination before the women nominees. Once we do that, then we take that number and look at it in totality and use it to calculate the two-thirds gender. As a result, we can look at the number of women that we need to balance the equation. In a situation where we have more women in Parliament, then how many more men do we need to be able to balance the equation? In that way, we shall reduce the number of men or women who will be nominated to sit in this House and save on costs. Hon. Temporary Speaker, as you are aware, we have been debating the Supplementary Budget this afternoon. One of the major concerns of any Kenyan anywhere is the cost of running government. The recurrent budget of this Government, as it has been for quite some time, has been way beyond what Kenyans can manage. For that reason, we need to look for ways and means of ensuring, as much as is practically possible, that we reduce the number of 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."
}