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{
    "id": 127036,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/127036/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 388,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Over 70 per cent of our annual budget goes into financing Recurrent Expenditure. This is basically because we have too huge a Government. This Government is not sustainable. It is a drain to this economy and a burden to taxpayers. Therefore, there is need to cut the size of this Government. We can only reduce the size of Government by starting with the Cabinet. If we have a leaner Cabinet, then obviously, the effect will trickle down to the lower cadre of staff then we will have a leaner Government. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, if we want this country to progress, there is need to run it as a company. There is no company without a structure. We cannot have a company where any chief executive who comes in is the one who will have the powers to decide what the structure of that company will be. That is what is actually taking place at the moment. The President that is voted in will be the one to decide how many Ministers he needs. To me, this is wrong. I blame the previous Parliaments for not doing their job because this is clearly spelt out in the Constitution. When the mover moved this particular Bill, he did indicate that he borrowed heavily from the provision of the Constitution of this country. This constitutional provision has been there, but this Parliament has never taken it as their responsibility to follow the Constitution and define the Cabinet as is provided for. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I am sure the constitutional review process is addressing the issue of whether we should be a parliamentary system or a presidential system of Government. We really need to be clear in our minds that, are we a parliamentary system or a presidential one. If we are a parliamentary system, then we will still have the Ministers appointed from Parliament. The Ministers need to have powers. At the moment, we have a mixed and confused system where the Ministers are supposed to be the spokesmen and spokeswomen of their Ministries, but we have Permanent Secretaries calling the shots. It is a bit confusing. I hope that this will be addressed. This Bill attempts to reduce politicising the appointment to the Cabinet. As I mentioned earlier, if a President wants to play politics, he will increase as much as he wishes, the number of Ministers. At the moment, the President can even have all the 222 MPs in the Cabinet. Nothing will stop him from doing so. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would like to urge that this House quickly passes this Bill, so that we can trim the Cabinet. I would also like to address the issue of education and integrity of Members who are to be appointed to the Cabinet. Some of us have argued about the requirement of a degree. As Mr. ole Metito said, in fact, we should even go a step further to insist that Members of Parliament should be degree holders. At the moment, Kenyans have embraced higher education in this country. We have so many people going for further studies. If we have a lazy leadership that does not want to advance their education, then that leadership should not lead in the first place. Maybe, at one point, you were not lucky enough to get a degree but nothing stops you from getting that degree later on. We can advance our education and become better educated. As far as I am concerned, that provision is perfect; we need to have it there. We should even move further to provide that even Members of Parliament need to have at least one degree as a requirement."
}