Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 1399249,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1399249/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 239,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. M. Kajwang’",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13162,
        "legal_name": "Moses Otieno Kajwang'",
        "slug": "moses-otieno-kajwang"
    },
    "content": "defined. Article 36 of that Constitution said that, Kenya shall be divided into 40 districts and Nairobi region and each district shall elect one Senator. That was at independence. Therefore, the definition of the number of districts was in the Constitution. The independence Constitution did something that the 2010 Constitution did not do. This is because the boundaries of these districts were put in the Constitution and there was a Schedule to Part 1. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, the first district whose boundaries were defined was Tana River. The District and Provinces Act by and large took the boundaries of districts as contained in the Independence Constitution. Between 1963 and 1992, from the 40 independent districts, by 1992 we had 46 districts that formed the basis of the counties that we have today. The additional districts were Migori which was hived off South Nyanza, so we ended up with Migori and Homa Bay instead of South Nyanza. Tharaka Nithi was hived off Meru. Makueni came off Machakos. Bomet came off Kericho. Vihiga which came off Kakamega in 1990 and Nyamira came off Kisii in 1989. That is how we ended up with the 46 plus one. Subsequent to that, President Moi and Kibaki, created almost 200 additional districts. We must also recognize that when the Constitution was being written, interestingly in the history of this Republic, I think President William Ruto was the Chair of the Select Committee on Constitutional Reform in Parliament. Consequently, when people went to Naivasha, they were looking for a quick solution to something that was very sticky on how the territory of Kenya would be divided. Would it be on the basis of regions or districts? However, at the time people were going to Naivasha, there had been almost 200 districts that had been created by the late President Moi and Kibaki since, the districts were being created for political reward. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, it is on record that in 2009, the High Court declared that all districts created after 1992 were unconstitutional. The reason was the Presidents would issue decrees to create districts and then they legalize thereafter. This is what led to the men and women who gave birth to this Constitution in Naivasha to go back to the 1992 District and Provinces Act. It was safer. It was easier to go back to 1963, which had 40 districts but because the districts had been validated only up to 1992, that was the threshold or benchmark that the crafters of our Constitution utilized. Was there a science? Perhaps, not. If you read the report of the Commission, there was something called the Royal Boundaries Commission. The 40 original districts were created on tribal grounds. It was more of ensuring that each tribe had its own conclave which they could control and where they could feel comfortable. On the 40 original districts, history tells us that three quarters of them were composed of entirely one tribe and the other quarter you would find one tribe would dominate almost 90 or 80 per cent. We keep having these problems with our counties because they have been inherited from districts created on tribal basis. Those of us who sit in the accountability committees such as Sen. Cherarkey and Sen. Sifuna, every time the Auditor-General tell us that county “X” has failed to leave up to the requirements of the law on ethnic composition. Therefore, we must go back to the The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."
}