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{
"id": 1506329,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1506329/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Eldas, JP",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Adan Keynan",
"speaker": {
"id": 41,
"legal_name": "Adan Wehliye Keynan",
"slug": "adan-keynan"
},
"content": " Thank you, Hon. Deputy Speaker. This is a very important Bill, especially for the young, first-time Members of Parliament. Once upon a time, a one-time Member of Parliament used to be pensionable, but in the year 2000, through an omnibus Bill, the then Attorney-General brought a Bill in the wee hours of the night. I can assure you by the time we passed it, the following morning we all got our refunds, and the Member of Parliament who was pensionable was reduced to a Member without pension. We promulgated the current Constitution in August 2010. This Bill should have been among the first Bills to be passed and aligned with the Constitution. What has happened in 13 to 14 years? It is because of the fear of the unknown. When you become a Member of Parliament, whether you have become one by design or as a product of this test-tube process, you become a leader. Outside there, just like what we were debating yesterday, you are bashed, criticised, lose your professional ethics or everything that you have earned over the years as a professional before you joined politics. Ask yourself why a Member of Parliament, who is a state officer, is treated differently by the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC), National Treasury and everybody else. It is simply because Members of Parliament fear the world outside there. When you were first elected, the assumption was that you were the most powerful, most popular, most handsome, most beautiful or everything else. When you come here, you lose all those identities. You leave here minus your husband, your wife, your health, your wealth and popularity. I can tell you by the time you exit here, you will be nobody. You will be regretting outside there and saying, “I wish I did this or that”. You have an opportunity, so do not fear. You are a State officer with the same constitutional entitlement like any other State officer pursuant to the current Constitution. Why have we not passed this? I am a member of the Departmental Committee on Finance and National Planning that will be bringing amendments and I assure you, we have put in place the best brains. However, I do not want to prejudice. We will give you the best product out of this. We are consulting the Parliamentary Service Commission (PSC), Pensions Department and the best brains within the parliamentary legal system so that we refine this Bill in the next stage, including giving the Member of Parliament treatment that befits not only other State officers but as an elected leader who has served one of the best institutions called the august House."
}