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{
    "id": 187252,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/187252/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 218,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Mungatana",
    "speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Medical Services",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 185,
        "legal_name": "Danson Buya Mungatana",
        "slug": "danson-mungatana"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the history of setting up the Parliamentary Service Commission is a long one! Members of this House had to queue to get their salaries. Members of this House were living like paupers. There were no proper terms of conditions. There was nothing. Nothing was being taken care of because all those powers were with the Executive. People other than Members of Parliament were running the affairs of Members of Parliament. What happened was that Members of Parliament had no freedom. One would be called and told to do something or something would happen. There was no security. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we cannot rubbish that history that made us to establish our own independent Parliamentary Service Commission! We cannot sacrifice it today under any circumstances. When we speak about the independence of Parliament, it is a long history. That goes with the principle of the separation of powers of the Executive, Legislature and Judiciary. Parliament had become, not a supreme expression of the will of the people of Kenya, but an organ of the Executive. It became an appendage of the Executive. The people of Kenya need to see Members of Parliament. History can bear us witness! It even runs now in the records of television! Members of Parliament here disagreed with the Executive and they were picked from this House. We cannot allow those days to return. We are not against amending this Motion to bring in women and have a regional balance. But we cannot surrender the independence of our Parliament. Section 45(b) goes on to explain the work that the Parliamentary Service Commission is supposed to do. Part (e) states:- \"Provide such services and facilities that are necessary to ensure efficient and effective functioning of the Assembly. Part (h) states:- \"From time to time as is necessary, to appoint an independent body to review and make recommendations on the salaries and allowances of members of the Assembly.\" That cannot be done by people who are not parliamentarians. If you look at the trade unions, you will realise that people who sit in the management of those unions are people who practice those professions or trade. They are the ones who sit to determine the issues that affect their membership. Let us look at our neighbours in East Africa. I had a look at the membership of the Ugandan Parliamentary Service Commission and they are all Members of Parliamentary. The members of the Tanzanian Parliamentary Service Commission are all Members of Parliament. Within this economic regional bloc, we cannot act outside it. I will bring to the attention of the hon. Members that we try to harmonise the presentation of the Budget for the East African countries so that they are read on the same day. Our Ministers are always consulting. We have even created the Ministry of East African Community Affairs. This means that we want our things to be together. If the parliaments of the East African Community have Members of Parliament looking after their own issues, how can we, in Kenya today, pass a Motion that takes us away from what our regional partners are doing? This cannot be the way forward. What we are seeking to do today in this Motion is to say that people other than ourselves be nominated to the Parliamentary Service Commission. When we talk like that, the example that comes to mind is Ghana. We are told that in Ghana, the people who sit in their Parliamentary Service Commission are people other than the Members of Parliament. Who are they? These are 2198 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES July 30, 2008 retired civil servants? Are we saying that this Parliament cannot produce Members who can look after us and take care of our issues? We have to depend on retired civil servants like in Ghana, to determine our issues! After we have struggled to be elected to this House, surely, amongst ourselves, there can be people who can be charged with the responsibility of looking after the affairs of the Members. Others can sit in other Committees and others can serve in the Government. There are people amongst us whom we have given that responsibility and they are doing a fantastic job. So far, everything that is in this House, including the plan to modernise and digitalize our Parliament is coming from people who are sitting in this Parliament. They know the difficulties we have in this Parliament and they are able to articulate those issues in the Parliamentary Service Commission. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, can you imagine proposing a budget running into billions of shillings, so that we can have live transmissions, to a retired civil servant? He will say that, that does not make any sense. But a Member of Parliament knows and he is the right person to approve such budgets. Can you imagine telling a retired civil servant that we need this kind of a budget because the Departmental Committee on Education, Research and Technology needs to go out and find the truth about the students' strikes? That man will tell you: \"No, go to the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education and he will give you that report to save this money!\" This House has come from too far. The history is too bitter and it evokes too many bad memories for us to surrender the control of our affairs to non-siting Members of Parliament. On that face of the Motion, I strongly oppose it. I am asking the hon. Members to strongly oppose this move. We will never be able to get back our independence once we give it up. We cannot pass this Motion. It is not possible!"
}