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{
    "id": 1474025,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1474025/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 231,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Dagoretti South, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. John Kiarie",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "I can see my very good friend, Hon. George Koimburi, in the House. We both know the dangers that Parliament runs into when we do not communicate our story the way we want, as we witnessed during the Finance Bill. Some issues that had been canvassed outside this House, which were not in the Bill, ended up becoming a matter of life and death. The failure here was not on any Member who said yes or no. There was a big failure in how we communicated as Parliament. In communication, we say that the way to communicate is when there is a channel and a receiver. Then there is a mechanism loop to ensure that the receiver has received the message so that the message can be corrected for effective communication if it is not correct. As it is, Parliament is speaking on platforms where Kenyans are not there. Kenyans are speaking in spaces where Parliament is not there. That is why Parliament is one of the biggest punching bags today. It is the boogieman of this country. The limited visibility Parliament has been enjoying is not favourable for any Member of Parliament. I can tell you that the ladies and gentlemen that are seated in this House are actually very popular in their constituencies, even if Parliament seems so unpopular. Otherwise, they would not be here. It means that Parliament needs to reorganise the way it is engaging the different publics to give them the right information so that the popularity that those Members have on the ground can be translated to the institution of Parliament. I went through this Report with a fine toothcomb and saw that it is recommending that we review the existing platforms of Parliament. It is recommending that we develop guidelines that will allow us even have communication officers in our different constituencies so that they can feed the content generation of the news that Parliament will be putting out there. I saw this Report recommending something critical. That, our Parliament must invest in communication. Communication is investing in a bank of goodwill. One should invest in that bank of goodwill in fair weather. The wise man says that one should make hay while the sun shines. Using communication, you invest in that bank of goodwill in the good times. There is a time you will not have goodwill with the people. That is when you start withdrawing from the bank of goodwill. This Parliament went into such attack because we had not invested into that bank of goodwill. Finally, even as we are onboarding our communication onto new platforms, the last point I would like to make is that we should be alive to the realities of the new world. Things called cybercrimes and cyberattacks are all realities that exist in the world that we want to import our things into. My recommendation is that, even as we think about onboarding to other proprietary existing platforms like have been named here, Kenya should also think about making its own Facebook, TikTok and Twitter, so that we own the content and the platforms that exist. We know the danger of putting our information out there on platforms that we do not own. Parliament is capable of developing its own digital platforms and digital spaces."
}