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"speaker_name": "Mr. Abdikadir",
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"content": "Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I do not want to take much time of the House. The CVs of each of the nominees are attached. They are very qualified. Mr. Issack Hassan Ahmed is the immediate former Chair or the current Chair of the Interim Independent Electoral Commission. This Commission has received a lot of kudos from Kenyans of all walks of life for the way it has conducted itself in the past two and a half years. It conducted a very successful referendum and numerous by-elections for this House. Mr. Hassan holds a bachelors degree in Law from the University of Nairobi. He is a lawyer of 17 years standing. He was a member of the CKRC which was headed by Prof. Ghai. He is a member of the Law Society of East Africa and the Law Society of Kenya and he has authored many papers. Mr. Yusuf Abdulrahman Nzibo holds a PhD. He is a Kenyan born in Pumwani in Nairobi in 1951. He also holds a Masters Degree in Philosophy from the University of Glasgow and an MBA from Strayer College (Washington D.C). He has a Bachelor of Arts Degree from the University of Nairobi. You have all that information, so I want us to move on. The rest of the nominees are all listed in the Report. Mr. Letangule is an important addition to the list of the members of this Commission. He hails from the Ilchamus Community, probably the smallest community that lives in this country. The fact that that gentleman is a member of this Commission is a credit to this country and to this Parliament. I will propose strongly that we approve the name. He is not the only one who is a member of a marginalized community. Ms. Lilian Bokeeye Mahiri hails from Nyanza, but from a marginalized community in Nyanza; the Kuria. That is not the only one. Mr. Alawi is a Bajun, again one of the smallest communities of this country. This Commission is, indeed, a reflection of the implementation of the spirit of the Constitution. It shows that when we do these things through these processes, when it is not just a small group or one office handling this matter, Kenyans of diverse backgrounds can rise to the top. Finally, there is Madam Kule Galma Godana who hails from Marsabit. This is the first person from that county to be appointed to any of these Commissions. Indeed, therefore, the members are not only qualified academically, constitutionally, but they also bring forward issues that are very dear to the country and the Constitution. That issue challenged the Committee. The Committee was concerned about the issue of regional and ethnic balance and a new issue about religious balancing. Quite a number of new issues are emerging. For example, how do you ensure that we have a regional balance when you have a very large region like the Rift Valley? From one end of the country to the other end with 10 million people, how do you ensure that? For example, when it comes to women, how do you identify them with one region or the other? If a lady is married from one region, born in another region, lives in another region and is married to a husband who comes from a different region; she might carry her husband’s name; her parents might be from different communities and her children might be completely different, how do you balance that? Those are the challenges that the Committee on Labour and Social Welfare is facing currently. Who identifies that person? Should it be a panel sitting in the Office of the President, Parliament or should the persons themselves be the ones handling those matters? I must thank the members of our media because in the last week, each of the key papers, namely, the Daily Nation, The Standard and The Star newspapers, have carried on their editorial pages these issues, extolling this Parliament to look at the Constitution in principle. There is then the issue of how you ensure that there is balance as far as this Commission is concerned. The Committee wishes to table the list of all the Commissions that have been appointed to this date starting from the Commission for the Implementation of the Constitution, the Commission for Revenue Allocation, the Judicial Service Commission, members of Independent Offices, Chief Justice, the Deputy Chief Justice, the Chief Registrar of the Judiciary, the Supreme Court, 28 Judges of the High Court, 50 per cent of whom were women, the Attorney-General, the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Controller of Budget, the vetting of judges and magistrates board, the selection panels which were set up and now the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission, the Commission on Administrative Justice and the National Gender and Equality Commission If you look at those names, we have almost 100 people. So, it will be easy for a Member to look at those and see what percentage came from which region, religion and ethnic group for the purpose of decision making in the future. Unfortunately, we have not sorted them out as per counties. The committee is working on that so that whoever is going to be making decisions later will have a global picture."
}