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{
    "id": 1493634,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1493634/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 71,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kikuyu, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Kimani Ichung’wah",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "participation exercises in the legislative processes of this House, the Senate, and our county assemblies. I want to agree with the Leader of the Minority Party that in line with Article 2 of our Constitution, the people may exercise their sovereign power either directly or through their democratically elected representatives, and those democratically elected representatives are the men and women who sit in this House and the Senate but, more so, in this House because this House represents the people. That is why you will find also in this Constitution, that many of the Bills that emanate from this House can become law without going to the Senate. We represent the people while our Senate colleagues represent our counties. That is why the Constitution provides that Bills that touch on counties and county governments go to the Senate. They may also emanate from the Senate but must be completed in this House. I have always argued, since 2013, when we adopted the bicameral Parliament system, that we do not need to belabour which House is superior to the other. If one House can enact legislation and it becomes law by itself, and the other House cannot enact legislation and it becomes law by itself and it has to go to the other House, then it goes without saying which House is the Upper House. That is not the point though. The point is that public participation has been abused by a number of our judges, especially in the High Court. I must commend the Supreme Court and those other judges who have exercised judicial restraint in determining what constitutes good public participation. I have read previous judgments on qualitative and quantitative analysis of what is good public participation, but the Supreme Court now has put it very well. I want to agree with Hon. Junet that it was misconstrued that public participation is a referendum. During the public participation exercise of the impeachment process of the former Deputy President, some argued that way. Some believed that we were going to carry out a referendum exercise. Public participation involves going to the public to collate the views of the public, but it is still up to the Members of Parliament to consider the views of the members of the public, and they may not necessarily be the right views. It is said that opinions are as many as…. I do not want to say what they say out there. You know what they say, that opinions are as varied as you know what, and everybody has theirs. Therefore, regardless of the many views we collect from the public, the onus is still on us as lawmakers to consider all those views and balance them against what the legislation that we are making seeks to achieve. I will take you back to the Finance Bill, 2024. I have seen the Cabinet Secretary for National Treasury and Economic Planning bring several proposals. They were very good proposals that were carried in the Finance Bill 2024. We went out to collect views and the Member for Molo, Hon. Kimani Kuria, spent, I think, close to 14 days seated in County Hall, listening to Kenyans. They came in their numbers to give views. They said they do not want taxation on bread. They also said they do not want to see taxation on motor vehicles. Kimani Kuria and the Departmental Committee on Finance and National Planning did a Report which was tabled and adopted by this House in the Second Reading, agreeing with members of the public that there should be no taxation on bread and motor vehicles. Kenyans from the manufacturing industry appeared before the Departmental Committee on Finance and National Planning and told them that we are killing our manufacturing industry in Kenya because we are encouraging more imports than local manufacturing. It was players in the manufacturing industry, through the Kenya Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA) and the Kenya Association of Manufacturers (KAM), that brought proposals that would protect our local manufacturing industry. They made proposals to levy excise duty on completed or finished products being imported from China, the Far East and Europe, including diapers and sanitary towels. But what happened? The public was incited to believe that this House was levying tax on all diapers and sanitary towels. Our young daughters were telling us in their parlance out there that: “ HawaWabunge hata hawataki tunyeshe sasa” . It was embarrassing to watch our teenage daughters The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}