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{
    "id": 1427148,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1427148/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 226,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Osotsi",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13588,
        "legal_name": "Osotsi Godfrey Otieno",
        "slug": "osotsi-godfrey-otieno"
    },
    "content": "volumes of documents. If we have Members of this Committee who are not committed, then we will not catch up. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I do not mean that my Members are not committed. My Members in the CPIC are very committed. That is why we have done so many reports. Still on the oversight committees is the issue of budgets. It is not fair that CPIC and CPAC have the same budget as other committees. These are Committees that deal with so many reports that require a lot of input and study. Therefore, they need to have adequate budgetary resources to do the reports. I have run out of my budget as a Committee. Therefore, I cannot process any more reports. So, if we have the same budget and considering that budgets have been slashed, it becomes very easy to achieve our objective. On the request to amend the Standing Orders to define a parliamentary party, I agree with the Committee on their final decision that a parliamentary party can have five Members. However, it should not belong to a coalition. I think this request was made in view of the Jubilee Party. The Jubilee Party has a right to get out of the Azimio Coalition, but they must do that within the law. The documents that are there indicate that Jubilee is still legally a member of the Azimio Coalition until they exhaust all the legal mechanisms, including the court process, so that they can become independent from Azimio. The amendment is fair to both parties. It says that they can become a parliamentary party, but they should not belong to a coalition. This is fair, unlike the request that was made which said that a party can have five members and become a parliamentary party. We also need to discuss the privileges of parliamentary parties. In the National Assembly, I have seen that there is a party of 17 Members, which has been allowed to appoint a Whip alongside the Minority Whip. If we allow these kinds of things, we will be creating confusion in our Houses. This is because there can only be two leadership sides: the Minority and the Majority side. If the Minority side has a Minority Whip, the other side should have a Majority Whip. We do not want a scenario where we have another layer in between. It creates confusion. I want to thank the Committee for being wise and recommending that parliamentary parties must first of all meet the criteria of five Members and should not belong to a coalition of parties. On the issue of the format of Statements, I support the request that was made that a Statement must have a background. The Statements we do in this house do not have a background. Sometimes, when they are sent to the people who are supposed to respond, they end up not responding adequately or capturing the basis of the Statement because the background is not there or is inadequate. I think it is important for the background to be there, stating the facts of the case and then the questions or the issues that need to be undertaken stated after that. I think it is important for us to continually improve on our Standing Orders to make them better and align them to the realities of our Parliament. For those very many remarks, I support these amendments that have been proposed and request that we rethink on this issue of implementation. How do we want to 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."
}