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{
    "id": 191741,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/191741/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 263,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Ruto",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Yes, he has finished on time, but I just wanted to say that I am not a busybody. I will take even shorter time. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, the Bill before us is a little bit, in my view, not quite right for introduction into this House, and I stand to oppose it. I think the intention of the drafters may have been good, but the functions they have assigned this Commission are generally, if they are for good intentions, best left to the vicars of the Anglican Church, the Catholic Church and other religious organisations. It can also be best left to wazees at home. It can be best left to men of good will, grandmothers and grandfathers to teach these ethics. We are developing a tendency in this country to legislate on every issue. It is apparent that the intentions are not quite well thought out because this Bill was rushed. I am grateful that the Minister for Justice, National Cohesion and Constitutional Affairs is here. I want to beg my good sister to reconsider this Bill. For one, we appear to be setting up commissions like it used to be done in the dark ages. This Commission is meant to go round the country and find out who is tribalistic. The Bill talks about setting up a Commission which may as well set up another body under it that should be named Ethnicity Impact Assessment, which will check everything everybody does in this country. If we look at paragraph \"K\" on Objects and Reasons, it says: \"One of its functions will be to determine strategic priorities in all the socio- economic, political and development policies of the Government impacting on ethnic relations and advise on their implementation.\" How do you implement this sort of exercise? What are you going to do? We are going to start another National Ethnic Impact Assessment Organisation so that every decision will have to be checked against this yardstick. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, secondly, it will also recommend to the Government the criteria for deciding whether any public office or officer has committed an act of discrimination on the ground of ethnicity. We should ensure that our Civil Service is properly trained ethically and that nationalism is inculcated in our children at early stages and throughout their life instead of coming up with yet another body that looks like the Ministry of Political Guidance. I do not know what this will do for yesteryears. These things were well know in communist states such as Russia and other places where somebody would be eavesdropping on what you are doing to determine whether one is politically-correct or not. The previous speaker had another definition for what is politically-correct. This Bill should be withdrawn and looked at afresh. There are several issues in this Bill which, if implemented, may actually create more tension. It may also create witch-hunting. At the end of the day, as I heard some of the Cabinet Ministers say that the responsibilities of this Commission may probably be to check who your driver is. I am quoting a Cabinet Minister who has just spoken. If you have a driver and an askari from one ethnic group, then you might have committed a crime which will be defined by the Commission for Ethnic Relations. I do not think it is really the business of this House to come up with some ridiculous commissions to deal with issues that can best be left to other organisations that handle morality. Madam Temporary Speaker, further to this, much as we have come out from a highly charged electioneering period, we should not imagine or divert attention that the problems were elsewhere other than within ourselves. It is the stealing of election results by the Electoral Commission of Kenya that led to violence. It is the failure by Government---"
}