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{
"id": 1516496,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1516496/?format=api",
"text_counter": 151,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Sifuna",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 13599,
"legal_name": "Sifuna Edwin Watenya",
"slug": "sifuna-edwin-watenya"
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"content": "As part of the leadership of the majority coalition, I felt we now need to give other people the opportunity to experience this SBC. When members talk about the anxiety about the speed with which some of the businesses are moving, especially the Bills in this House, I do not think from our side there is somebody who is more passionate about the speed at which business is moving than Sen. Crystal Asige. I hope that with her on that committee, she will ensure that what she has wished to see now happens under her guidance. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I need to raise another issue as a leader in the House regarding the speed with which we process Bills. It is also a question of dedication, quorum and the presence of Members on this Floor. I remember those meetings of the SBC; we struggled, and the whips, especially failed the weight. Another paper has almost 30 Bills and they keep recurring week after week. We want to ask members that during these last two years of this Senate, people have appeared to process those Bills, especially the sponsors. How many times have we had to drop Bills because the sponsors were not in the House? So, I also want to ask that, whereas SBC can prioritise that business, we need the sponsors of the Bills to be here. Finally, a matter has been raised here and I am sure you have said you will give guidance, but as Members of the House and the leadership, we can also guide. The Constitution is elaborate. It starts by defining what Parliament is, then separating the roles of the Senate and the National Assembly. It goes to be specific enough as to the roles of each of those Houses, the matters that can be processed in each house and the matters that cannot. On the question of which party is a majority party in the Senate, there is absolutely no mention throughout the entire document of the Constitution. In my view, it means that the leadership or the designation of a majority party is set in the National Assembly. I will tell you why I think that because it would be absurd as the Secretary General of the ODM for my party to be the majority down there. I am in the minority here. Sometimes, when you get communications from these coalitions, for instance, our membership of the Parliamentary Service Commission (PSC), there is only one person who writes those letters to you. That is the Secretary General of the Azimio coalition. Would he write in the National Assembly as the leader of a majority party and here he writes as a leader of a minority party? These are some of the absurdities that would arise if we did not follow the designation. By the way, I want to be clear that we, in the majority coalition, will ensure we enforce that court order because we are believers in the rule of law. Once a court has pronounced itself, Sen. (Dr.) Khalwale, you look for another seat. You do not insist on the one that you have been told is not yours. A Member of the Senate cannot stand here and say that the courts are out there and we are here. We exist in a constitutional order. The things that happen here have consequences outside. The process of checks and balances and oversight requires that other organs also look into the issues that this particular institution is doing. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, we will not allow people to conflate issues. If Azimio is the majority party in the National Assembly, it follows that we are the majority in this House. 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."
}