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{
"id": 1451253,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1451253/?format=api",
"text_counter": 100,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Mungatana, MGH",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "do not think that this fire department should even exist. This is the attitude in the counties. It is my prayer that this Bill will put a change in this attitude so that our governors can start looking at this as a profession, the same way they look at police officers. In more developed economies, people are proud to be firemen. Someone will tell you: “My father was a fireman and I am also following in the family tradition to be a fireman”. It is the same way people are proud to be in the lineage of soldiers and police officers. There is no doubt that this Bill has come at a good time when people can start bringing to the attention of our counties that, indeed, we need to do something about our various fire departments. The only thing I would like Sen. Abass to look at is the board that he has created. In the proposed clauses, they have created a Cabinet Secretary in charge of fire and rescue. To the best of my knowledge, this Cabinet Secretary does not exist. This Bill seems to creating a board - it is a good step but I think we need to change some of the things - that puts a Principal Secretary (PS) responsible for matters of fire and rescue as a member of the board. It also puts the PS for Finance and the Ministry responsible for internal security on the board as well. This is a devolved function. As a standard procedure for us in the Senate, we must create or develop a legislation that will help our counties take charge of their destiny. Mr. Speaker, Sir, we seem to have surrendered the Board's power to the national Government. We have several Principal Secretaries in a board that is supposed to function for the county governments, and then the governors are only having two positions to nominate people. I feel that we can restructure this Board so that it reflects the fact that Fire and Rescue is actually a function of the counties. We must create a law that is going to help our governors to manage their functions, and not to give excuses so that they say, “Look, the Board is the one, and it is the Principal Secretaries of Nairobi, who have not assisted us to do the work. There is no legal framework for us to be able to execute our duties.” We laud the fact that this Board actually has been created and through this legislation, it will come into existence. However, the Board does not seem to have any person or even powers to recognize experience learning. I would ask Sen. Abass to find a way in which they can recognize people who are already practicing this fire and rescue, because there are people who are already doing this work, but they do not have any serious qualifications. So, this law should give an opportunity to recognize those who have experience as professionals as a beginning. At the same time, it will be important for this law, because it is talking about professionals, to clearly state that for one to be a professional, he must have trained for six months, one year, two years or something, for him to be recognized as a professional. In the Law Society of Kenya (LSK) or even in the Accountants Profession, or the Marketing Profession, or the doctors, and the clinical officers, and those engineers' board, they have clear requirements for one to be recognized as a professional. So, it cannot be that we are just creating a Board that is talking about professionals, yet we have not defined who is enough to be called a fire professional. 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."
}