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{
    "id": 1283457,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1283457/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 172,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Dadaab, WDM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Farah Maalim",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "The Senate is a House of union. For example, you can have a Senator from Lamu and a Senator from Kakamega. That is a House of union. It is a House that brings the nations of this country into one nation called Kenya. That is the reason why Wyoming has got two Senators and one House Representative and California has got 37 House Representatives and only two Senators. The role of the Senate should be, one, to protect devolution. The second role should be to ratify appointments. Vetting and approval of members of Government who are appointed by the Executive should not be a role of the National Assembly but rather, it should be a role of the Senate. As far as the purse is concerned, the National Assembly should have the exclusive responsibility of creating the Budget for this country. Hon. Speaker, every time we have an issue here, instead of referring to best practices and doing it for posterity, we go back to negotiate. This is not a political process. This is not an Azimio and Kenya Kwanza issue. The National Assembly has its role cut out for it and the Senate has its own. There is nothing we can change. In the grey areas that are not well defined, we need to go back and see how we can firm up the Constitution so that there is no doubt at any given time of the two Houses trying to do the same things at the same time. With those remarks, I support the rejection of this Motion. I support the suggestion that we should not even negotiate such things. Our role and that of the Senate should be cut out clearly. If there is a constitutional provision to do that, let us go ahead and have it. The Senate has the role of protecting devolution and determining the criterion to be used to allocate money amongst the devolved units. It has no role in something central like this one. This is the National Assembly and we should not have any issue about such things."
}