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{
    "id": 1374015,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1374015/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 96,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Cheruiyot",
    "speaker_title": "The Senate Majority Leader",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13165,
        "legal_name": "Aaron Kipkirui Cheruiyot",
        "slug": "aaron-cheruiyot"
    },
    "content": "sufficient opportunity for him to thrive and live out to his full abilities. Cost of living and such related issues featured prominently under that subtopic. Implementation of the two-thirds gender rule featured in the discussion. This is one of the areas where I am disappointed in the report. Therefore, we will have to make a bipartisan decision. We thought we had cracked it, but at the last minute, there were certain changes in views and perspectives about the topic. I believe this House is not lacking men and women who believe in this gender inclusivity conversation. At the time of the consideration of this report, you may want to guide us on how to go about this particular issue. I know and have seen many of our colleagues in the time that I have been in this House try to resolve this particular issue with very minimal success. If we fail to resolve the two-thirds gender challenge under this bipartisan spirit, then I doubt if we will ever have any other better opportunity in our time in Parliament. Colleagues as you debate and think about this particular report, you may want to guide us. I am willing to be convinced of what additional propositions can be brought to the table so that we resolve it because the formulas and the ideas have already been proposed to it. Some of them are very practical and include only the addition of another, maybe between 28 and 36 women to make the House fully compliant, using the model of the Senate. The Senate is short of compliance with the two-thirds gender rule by only two women. That is the same formula that we wanted applied to the National Assembly to make us, as the institution of Parliament, compliant. Hon. Members, you may want to guide us because unfortunately we did not crack it and passed it over to another subcommittee, something that all of us here know that it is just another way of kicking the can down the road. That will never give us a solution. The decision lies in the four walls of the House of Parliament. I hope that we can converse in a bipartisan manner and agree on which way. Mr. Speaker, Sir, there were also governance issues, which include the promotion of national unity and inclusivity in public appointments. There is a proposal. These are some of the things that we said, we did not want to do any constitutional amendment on. We did not want to make any amendment to the statute because the laws that are prevailing in the country are sufficient to guarantee that. We just made policy changes that we feel, the institutions that are charged with the responsibility of monitoring to ensure that there is cohesiveness in the country and inclusivity in public appointments, can do and live up to their mandate. That is covered broadly in the report. There are adequate checks and balances where there is a proposal on how to go about it and how to counterbalance the institution of Parliament. A Senator earns as much as a Member of the National Assembly, even though geographically alone, we represent a higher population than Members of the National Assembly. There are more responsibilities and mandates that we have that are exclusive to the Senate, which our colleagues in the National Assembly do not have. If you speak to any Kenyan today, especially in their bipartisan mood where they rise over and above our political divisions, they will tell you that one of the things that"
}