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"speaker_name": "Mr. Kipchumba",
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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, now that we have a quorum, as I clearly said, when the Motion about the Arturs will be coming all the hon. Members will be present here and I think I was right. The Political Parties Bill is, in my view, more critical than the Arturs. Without a good democratic process in any political system, many of these hon. Members will be rigged out. There has been political nomadism that we have experienced in this country, for example, whenever a Member is defeated at the party elections, without shame and consideration whatsoever, moves to the next party. You have heard a colleague say that hon. Members cross to another political party with a lot of dishonesty. If you are popular, why not go to your constituency and seek a fresh mandate? If you are elected on a particular political party ticket, then you must be a very dishonest person to assume that you can change the political party at will. We have hon. Members here who have been members of ten or more political parties. Political nomadism will never stop in this country until we enforce this Bill. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, every time we go to a political rally, hon. Members talk of funding of political parties. I wish that all those hon. Members were here today so that they could contribute and enrich this very important Bill. I would like to say that I have looked at this Bill and there will be amendments to it as any other Bill. That should not be a cause for alarm. All we need to do is to request the relevant Departmental Committee on Administration of Justice and Legal Affairs, to do its job well and the Minister to take into consideration all the proposals that will be mentioned by hon. Members. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, there are limitations as to how much a Member can give. I want to talk on the issue of economics first. Kshs1 million is okay now but not tomorrow. There is inflation which is never static to the extent that if we fix a figure of Kshs1 million it may not be acceptable now. Therefore, I want us to probably re-word it in such a way that we will not be amending the Bill as and when inflation affects the country. I want the Minister to re-word it in the legal language that will allow us to continue. As you are aware, many of the punishments and penalties that are enforced in this country are now so low that if somebody was to be told that \"you are paying Kshs2,000\" it would be laughable. I also want to talk about the allocation of the monies as voted by the Exchequer. When you talk of 25 per cent, it may look like very little money when the vote is very low. But when the amount is in billions, 25 per cent is a lot of money. To give a very small political party 25 per cent is, in my view, too much because 25 per cent of Kshs1 billion is Kshs250 million. With the stringent regulations, we would not have many parties anyway. We would not be having 80 parties. Most of the parties present now will fizzle out. There will probably be about ten or so parties. Therefore, if we were to share Kshs250 million between only ten parties, it will be Kshs25 million April 19, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 815 for a briefcase party. Assuming that it has grown from being a briefcase to something that can be registered, then you are talking of a few people having Kshs25 million from Kenyans who are the taxpayers every year. In my view, that is unacceptable. Therefore, I want us to consider reducing that 25 per cent to 10 per cent. I do not expect that, in this House, we will just vote Kshs1 billion for all the political parties. Maybe we will vote for Kshs2 billion. Therefore, increasing the figure makes our calculation even worse. At a later stage, I will be proposing, or if the Minister could amend that, that be amended to 10 per cent. The second part of that Clause 23(b) says that 75 per cent will now be shared as per the number of votes secured by all political parties. I want to pose this question: How do we fund a party that has not participated or did not have a presidential candidate? How then, would we calculate the number of votes that each political party has secured? I would like to get an explanation, probably when the Minister is replying, as to how the number of votes will be calculated for each political party. My reasoning is that each political party will have a certain number of votes as per the participating presidential candidate. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I am raising a very important point. That, the 75 per cent which will be shared according to the number of votes secured by political parties is not practical given that not all political parties have candidates participating in a general election. I would propose that this be done as per the number of Members of Parliament that every political party will have been able to secure to Parliament. The reasoning is that any serious party in this country must have, at least, one or two Members of Parliament. For example, SAFINA has, at least, one Member of Parliament in this House. That is an indication of some sort of seriousness in that party. Therefore, I do not agree that we should only look at the number of votes secured. We should also consider the number of Members of Parliament that each political party will have secured. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the Bill also talks of the accounts being audited by the Auditor-General. We do not have in this country a person called \"Auditor-General\". We have this officer in other jurisdictions, but in this country, we call him the \"Controller and Auditor-General\". Therefore, I want the Minister to make that correction, otherwise we will be referring to a totally different officer, but probably the same person in another jurisdiction. This Bill says that the accounts must be taken to Parliament. That is obvious. Once the Controller and Auditor-General has audited the accounts, they are always made available to Parliament. Therefore, it does not make sense to say that the accounts should be made available to Parliament. Once they have been audited, they must be made available to the Public Accounts Committee, or any other committee of Parliament that will be supposed to look into them. Therefore, it is not necessary make this provision."
}