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{
    "id": 1400701,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1400701/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 162,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Homa Bay County, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Peter Kaluma",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Hon. Temporary Speaker, I am standing before you and the House under Standing Order 131. For clarity purposes, permit me to read what it says: “Where after a Bill has been Read a Second Time and before commencement of Committee of the whole, amendments have been proposed to it, which in the opinion of the Speaker require harmonisation, the Speaker may direct any Member proposing an amendment to the Bill to appear before the relevant departmental committee dealing with the subject matter of the Bill to present his or her proposed amendments and the Committee shall submit a report to the House on the result of the exercise before the Committee of the whole House is taken” I am invoking the provisions of that Standing Order in relation to the next Order, which is to follow. This is with regard to the Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill (National Assembly Bill, No.61 of 2022), which should be proceeding to the Committee of the whole House. Those Standing Order provisions require that if there were to be invocation of the provisions, it be done just before we move. Since that is the next Order, I am so moving. Hon. Temporary Speaker, this is a Bill brought by my senior sister, Hon. Millie Grace Aoko Odhiambo Mabona. It is a Bill which has been brought before the House on a number of occasions before. If you can look at the Order Paper, there are several amendments proposed to the Bill. There are very many amendments proposed by the relevant departmental committee, which is the House Committee in charge of health under the able leadership of Hon. (Dr) Pukose. Those amendments, you will note, begin from the definition of provision, that is Clause 2, dealing with provisions. From the Order Paper, you will also notice from page 393 that there are very many amendments. If you look at these amendments, they also begin from Clause 2 of the Bill and they touch on several provisions. In fact, I can say over 90 per cent of the provisions of this Bill are being proposed to be amended by myself. I know it is not the stage to go into the details of those proposed amendments, but that is the reason I am moving, so that as we go for winnowing, the matters we can agree on, we do so. After that we can come back with an agreed position. This will save Parliament's time. For instance, I am proposing an amendment to the word ‘couple’. I am just giving this as an example. My concern is that a word like couple is already defined in the Marriage Act and in the Constitution, but the manner in which it is being defined here, any association of people can meet the definition of a couple. This will open a pandoras box. If you look at something like that, ‘any association of people…’ and by the way, it is not specific."
}