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"id": 194032,
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"speaker_name": "Mr. C. Kilonzo",
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"legal_name": "Charles Mutavi Kilonzo",
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"content": "Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, they have been mentioned for prosecution and others have been recommended to be locked up yet they sit in the Cabinet. Today, we are talking about 96 Ministers and Assistant Ministers. I beg to differ with my colleague, Maj-Gen. Nkaisserry, that in the 1960s, the Cabinet was small because the population was small. In this era of information technology, truly, it does not make much difference. It should even be smaller! Mr. Munya was very clear and I agree with him. When we have a Cabinet of 40, then every community - there are 42 communities in this country - and they all want to be represented. If they are 40, then it must have been on the basis of every community! We want a slot. However, if you have a small Cabinet, everybody will understand. There were days when you would sit down for an examination and you are asked to name the Cabinet because they were 15 or 20 and you would know them. Today, even if the best brains only were asked to name the 95 Ministers and Assistant Ministers and say what Ministry they belong to, it will not work. Nobody will pass! That shows that there is something very wrong. Of importance to this House, and which we must accept, is that the Executive has poached 95 hon. Members to go and do Executive work. The role of Parliament is to, first and foremost, legislate. So, when you take almost half of Parliament to go and do Executive work, then what have you done to Parliament? You are actually killing it! If this law will be passed, we need to see a very small fraction, perhaps, not more than 15 per cent or 20 per cent maximum. However, as we talk today, we have hon. Members sitting in three watchdog Committees. There is one who is sitting in four Committees because we do not have enough hon. Members for those Committees. They have been poached. Perhaps, we should change the law and have the Assistant Ministers sit in these Committees but, of course, it will not work. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, when we talk about 95 Ministers, this is a luxury we cannot afford. It is an expense we cannot afford. Some of those Ministries are departments. It is even worse; others are sections of departments and we say we have a Ministry just because we want to make sure we satisfy an individual with a flag. It is wrong! That era of pleasing a few politicians is gone. We are proud as Back Benchers and there is nothing wrong with a Back Bencher. We are not saying that this Bill is for the sake of it. We are saying that when it is enacted, we want to see Ministers being sacked or demoted and others being sent to the Back Bench. The last time I saw Mr. Kamama and Dr. Machage, they were okay. They might be complaining but they are okay. They were demoted from the Cabinet. Out of that 95, we want to see 50 back to the Back Bench where they belong because they are hon. Members. You saw what happened over the weekend. People want to see the Opposition. They want to see Parliament talk for them. The word \"Opposition\" has been misconstrued to mean we want to bring down the Government. So, when we see 90 something of them saying that they do not want to hear something about the Grand Opposition, we say something is wrong. We want our people back to the Back Bench, and not in the Executive. Just to finalise, it is unfortunate that we have gone back to the single-party era. Somebody May 14, 2008 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 1017 said that KANU, as a party, will rule for 100 years. It is obvious; it is all here now."
}