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{
    "id": 1371814,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1371814/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 181,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Orwoba",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "We should not just be raising Statements here, which are then forwarded to the committees who negotiate with the Ministries, State Departments and agencies. I am looking forward to the day when a Statement will be raised regarding a Ministry where someone is responsible as an accounting officer in government. You will be trembling because the Senate has summoned you to come and tell Kenyans what is happening. Until that day comes, we are going to be talking and begging that the upper House be given powers and the impact of our work will be very minimal. If I was a Member of the Committee on National Security, Defence and Foreign Relations, I would have summoned the IG. We cannot be allowing our women and girls to be demonstrating on the streets of Nairobi when as legislators we have no powers to summon those officers responsible and ask them what is happening. Why are all these criminals who are killing our women not being arrested? Why are we not seeing any convictions or movement in terms of the change that we are legislating for in this House? There should be a provision in this amendment Bill. I want to sit down with Sen. Osotsi after this session and ask him what happens when the person in question is the IG? Can we arrest him? What happens? Madam Temporary Speaker, as women we are tired. We are knocking in every single office. We are going to this office and that Ministry and at the end of the day, people are looking at us in this House and wondering: Sen. Orwoba, we sent you there to fight for women. Our women are dying and you are just giving us Statements, summoning people to the House and calling a committee. Kenyans do not care about the bureaucratic processes that we have here. They want to see us in action. I must support this Bill because at this point - and I do not want to sound drunk with power - I would really like to have powers to arrest these men who are killing our women and are finding all these legal loopholes to maneuver the judicial system. I want to have powers as the Senator who was nominated to represent women to stand in this House and say that we must summon the IG and the head of the gender desk. If they are not interested to come and discuss those issues with us, then we must be able to arrest them. I know Sen. Dullo is wondering whether we are discussing gender. We are discussing a Bill about empowering this upper House to effectively play the oversight role to an extent where people and the authorities that be tremble when they are being summoned to answer why Kenyans are dying. They will understand that we mean serious business. Madam Temporary Speaker, I am very sad on this day. It is just that I am gathering all the courage to make sure that I represent the people who sent me here well. We are tired of demonstrations, writing Statements and legislating further. How much longer will we legislate? If this legislation is being implemented, we will end up with the best laws, policies and human resource. Sixty seven Senators sitting in the ‘Upper House’ with neither tools nor power to tell an individual in a State agency that they are not doing what they are supposed to.’"
}