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{
    "id": 1227241,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1227241/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 393,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Sifuna",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13599,
        "legal_name": "Sifuna Edwin Watenya",
        "slug": "sifuna-edwin-watenya"
    },
    "content": "Sen. (Dr.) Khalwale, I am a student of evolution. The exercise of these rights is what gives them life. We have given our position as the Minority Side on these amendments. I want to confirm here that we, as the leadership of the Minority side, will be proceeding to court to challenge these particular amendments and we know that that is the forum to ventilate some of the issues raised by my colleagues. Madam Temporary Speaker, allow me to disabuse the notion of some of my colleagues that this is something other than what it is. In our view, this is not an opportunity for us to put Members of the Cabinet to task. It is a cosmetic change. We could have been done way better by going through the long constitutional route to give this Senate powers over these Cabinet Secretaries and I am going to demonstrate how. I like what Sen. Okenyuri was saying, but I hope that she also listens to us. If you look at the rules that were passed by the Majority Side because the record of the Senate indicates, that although it is now a decision of the Senate, the Minority Side in fact did not participate in that decision and that is why we are taking the matter up. Madam Temporary Speaker, the rules that we have bound ourselves to in this process allow, first of all, for very serious censorship from the Speaker; that the questions you want to put to a Cabinet Secretary can be denied by the Speaker. Those are the rules that we passed here. Secondly, if we have complained about the speed of the responses that come from the committees and yet we go again and bind ourselves in a period of time under those rules that were passed here, that the responses of Cabinet Secretaries can only come after seven day; then we are defeating the point. As politicians, we know that the news cycle is incessant and it does not stop. Stories develop every day. Kenya is always on the move. By the time you are asking a Cabinet Secretary a question from seven days ago, that matter has long moved on to something else. If the real intention of this House was to try and have quick responses to relevant and current matters, then these rules that have been passed have tied the hands of the Senate on the speed with which you can get answers for your residents. Madam Temporary Speaker, my good Senator, Sen. (Dr.) Lelegwe, is here. If there are security issues in his county - there has been an attack on a school - even if you"
}