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{
    "id": 1227243,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1227243/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 395,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Sifuna",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13599,
        "legal_name": "Sifuna Edwin Watenya",
        "slug": "sifuna-edwin-watenya"
    },
    "content": "get the CS here - by the time they get here, that issue will have moved on and we will have fresh questions. Those questions cannot be asked because already, other questions had been submitted seven days earlier. We also have this position that these rules have been framed to stifle debate further. For instance, they say that you cannot ask a CS about something you heard in the media. I will give you a classic example, and I wish the Senator for Uasin Gishu, the chairperson of the Committee on Health, was here. A few weeks back, I read in the newspaper that there was a secret policy in the Ministry of Health that was going to restrict labour migration in health services to other countries. The Media are partners in the democratic process. Many things have been unearthed. Individual citizens do not have the sort of investigative tools that are available to the media to always know what is going on in the country. If you have read today’s papers, there are a lot of revelations about some of the things that are going on in the country. If I had not read that report in the newspaper about that health policy, I would not have used the platform of this House to get clarification from the Ministry of Health. I attended sessions of the Committee on Health, where the stakeholders came. The Ministry of Labour and Social Protection confirmed that they are not aware of such a policy because it is a policy by the Ministry of Health. The stakeholders confirmed to us that it is a secret policy in the Ministry of Health. They were given some circular, but they had not participated in the formulation of that policy. Therefore, you cannot ban or outlaw asking question by Members on matters that they have seen from the media, yet the media is a critical partner in democratization. I want my colleagues to know that you cannot ask a CS a quotation from their own speech. In the context of what is happening in the country right now, if, for instance, we had the CS for Interior and National Administration before us next week--- For instance, I have seen a quotation of him saying that he needs to bring amendments to the House to review the Public Order Act. As a Senator, I will have gagged myself by the rules that I pass by myself. I believe that our colleagues need to understand and appreciate that, in fact, this thing is not what is being made to look like. Another issue is the restriction to the nature of the question. That is why I urge my colleagues that they will not achieve what they think they are going to achieve with these rules. There are 11 restrictions to the questions you can ask a CS. Some of them are interesting. First of all, your question cannot convey a point of view. I cannot say, for example, that ‘ Bw. CS, from the way I see things, the deployment of Kenya Defence Force (KDF) together with the police creates command problems because of the relationship of the two entities.’ I cannot do that. I like to speak with linguistic tools, but you have gagged me. You have said I cannot use irony, imputations, inference or opinion. How am I going to debate? Maybe other people have the capacity to speak devoid of these linguistic devices. However, I depend on them and that is how I became a lawyer and an MP."
}