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{
    "id": 194044,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/194044/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 144,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. K. Kilonzo",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 172,
        "legal_name": "Julius Kiema Kilonzo",
        "slug": "kiema-kilonzo"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I thank the Mover for donating three minutes to me. I am going to be, indeed, very brief. First, I support this Motion because previous Parliaments have been used as rubberstamps by the Executive. This is the time the Tenth Parliament is reclaiming its rightful position. That position is by legislating and making sure that Kenyans are not again going to have a bloated Cabinet as it is this time. May be the circumstances this time are different. My friend, hon. Mungatana, referred to the Kenyan people as customers. I want to refer to them as our employers. Our employers asked for a lean and clean Cabinet. Our employers were not wrong. That is what they wanted. The civil society was all over asking for that, but the politicians defied that by awarding their cronies. The issue of the size of the Cabinet and the people who are going to be in it depends on who you know as opposed to what you can do. Clearly, the definition of any Government is the government of the people by the people, for the people, but this Government has not listened to the people. That is why we are coming up with this law to make sure they follow it. We saw what happened on Labour Day, Kenyans walked out on the President when he addressed the issue of the salary hike for workers. That was a clear message that Kenyans are unhappy with the big Government. The workers are wondering why we cannot give them a salary hike if we are able to meet the demands of this big Government. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, because I have very few minutes, I want to say that may be we should consider the proposed Bill when it is introduced in the House and carry out a comprehensive constitutional review to determine the mode of Government we would want to adopt. Do we want to adopt a Government where Ministers are appointed from elected Members of Parliament whereby party chiefs will favour their cronies, or do we want the presidential model in America where the Secretaries or Ministers are appointed from outside Parliament? In this case, parliamentarians will be left with the work of Parliament. Or do we want to go the parliamentary way? With those few remarks, I beg to support this Motion."
}