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"speaker_name": "Ms. A. Abdalla",
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"legal_name": "Amina Ali Abdalla",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir. I started last week by submitting why we should, as a Parliament, allow non-siting hon. Members to serve in the Parliamentary Service Commission (PSC). I said then that we will only manage human excesses that can take place in the PSC by bringing in an external person, who is not faced by the realities that sitting hon. Members might be facing at a particular time when they are Members of this House. So, the inclusion of non-sitting hon. Members is to bring moderation in the decisions of the PSC to serve as a conscience to the Commission, as an internal auditor of the actions and decisions that the Commission must make. I must confess, as a trade unionist, that the PSC, has done great work, but this does not mean that hon. Members have the monopoly of ideas to change how Parliament is run, how staff are managed and how the welfare of hon. Members can be improved. So, it is in that light that I would like to ask the House to allow for people who are not living the realities of a sitting hon. Member to inject different wisdom into the PSC by including them in it. This will help us deal with the public relations nightmare that Parliament is currently suffering. It is very difficult for us to go against our peers on any issue; so, it is the same for the PSC. If you are all hon. Members in it, you will not question what your peers are supportive of. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, most Members of Parliament are in support of the Bomas Draft Constitution, which contains a recommendation to have people who are not sitting Members of Parliament to sit in the Parliamentary Service Commission (PSC). In other jurisdictions such as Swaziland, Nigeria and the Southern Sudan, parliaments have PSCs that have 2194 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES July 30, 2008 non-sitting Members of Parliament working with sitting Members of Parliament. Last year, we made the Minister of State for National Security wish that there was no Question Time, because we questioned him on regional and district balance of their recruitment exercises. The only way the gentleman managed to evade the questions was by invoking the Government Secrets Act. This House has a PSC which completely overlooks three provinces of this country which apply the now emerging fad in the political scenario, namely, the one man, one vote scenario, where people who come from larger communities fill up the PSC, while the minorities are overlooked. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I am not asking for the PSC to apply the Jacksonian myth of everybody having to sit down on the decision-making table. What I am saying is that if we want to have the moral authority to talk about nepotism in this country, we must begin with the PSC, because the \"content\" of the PSC reflects the staffing in the Parliamentary Service. The current PSC has no representation from the North Eastern, Coast and Nairobi provinces. It also does not have a woman. That needs to be remedied. The reason as to why we need to remedy this is because each time we come here and say we want a Commission set up, we say that the Commission should have a minimum of eight Members, so that it can have a regional outlook. A membership of eight Members is expensive for this country, but it is a cost which most of us overlook because we think that it will be able to facilitate regional balance. The current PSC does not have that balance. Even the previous PSC did not have that balance. So, we want to ensure that in the next Parliament, the composition of the PSC reflects regional balance. That is why I am calling for this amendment. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, on the issue of gender, if today I decide to be disorderly, and another female hon. Member decided to be disorderly, and you wanted to forcefully remove us from this Chamber, you do not have sufficient female members of staff in the Serjeant- At-Arms Department. So, you will be forced to ask Mr. Wendo to get rid of me, which is a reflection of the fact that there is no gender equity in the employment of staff to serve in the Parliamentary Service. The Parliamentary Service Act states in Section 5(2)(a) that part of what the Commission will promote is gender equity and respect for the rights and freedoms of others as one of the values of the Act. How do we expect that to trickle down if the Commission itself does not respect that value? Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, some hon. Members have the mistaken notion that I have this Motion as an indictment of the people serving in the current PSC. I would like to state categorically that, that is not the intention of my Motion. My intention in bringing this Motion here is for us to work on the principle that the current PSC Membership serves its five year term, but let us not allow this mistake to be repeated in the next Parliament, which is why we need this amendment. Some hon. Members have asked why I want to limit the discretion that has been given to party leaders to decide who sits on the PSC on behalf of their parties. This House passed the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights Act, which limits the discretion of the President, who is elected by millions of Kenyans. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, if Parliament is able to say: \"Mr. President, we will limit you to these three people. Choose one of these three persons to be commissioner\", why should we not be able to limit the discretion of party leaders? Some of us argue that if a party leader has Members of Parliament from the Coast and North Eastern provinces but he does not nominate them to sit on the PSC, then those communities will be able to punish the party leader in the next general election. We do not even know which parties the current party leaders will be in by July 30, 2008 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 2195 the time of the next general elections. We must seek protection from the Constitution from the excesses of party leaders, who preach water and drink wine. They sing everywhere that they promote gender and regional balance but when push comes to shove, they are not able to implement what they keep preaching. With those few remarks, I beg to move and ask Ms. Shabesh to second the Motion."
}