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{
"id": 247811,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/247811/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Shakombo",
"speaker_title": "The Minister for National Heritage",
"speaker": {
"id": 244,
"legal_name": "Rashid Suleiman Shakombo",
"slug": "rashid-shakombo"
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"content": " Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I beg to introduce the National Museums and Heritage Bill No.2 of 2006, for Second Reading. The principle objective of the Bill is to amend and consolidate the law relating to the national museums and heritage. The Bill will reflect the Antiquity and Monuments Act, Cap.215, and the National Museums Act, Cap.216. It will update and enhance the legal framework of the museums and heritage management and make them consistent with international standards and treaties. The two Acts that I have mentioned; that is, Cap.215 and Cap.216, were enacted in 1983. For more than a decade, those two Acts have made a strong and positive impact on both national museum development and cultural heritage management in this country. However, during the last 10 years, museum activities have expanded and grown both in scope and geography. The two Acts have led to a very big shortfall. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, if this Bill is enacted into law, it will give the museum a strong mandate and make it an effective organisation. It will also develop institutional development, create ability to attract skilled professionals, and also create potential development of revenue generating activities, investments, partnerships and financial independence. Up to now, we only depend on donors and those who wish to give us a helping hand. Other than that, if we are left alone, and because we do not have any instruments that can enable us raise our own finances, then we shall be left in the limbo. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, if this Bill is enacted, it will clear all outdated activities. It will also remove the weak and unclear powers for effective heritage preservation in our country. This Bill will also give us a clear, harmonized legal framework and procedures for heritage management and development of museums in Kenya. We need a proper organisation, institutional development and capacity for national museums. This can only be achieved if this Bill is enacted into law. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the other objective of this Bill is to consolidate the present Acts into one for a clear, properly controlled framework for heritage management and development in Kenya. It will also create better conditions for national museums and create development for potential increased revenue base, more authority and flexibility of operations, and capacity to attract and retain competent staff. It will also enable us update the legal framework of heritage management to comply with the current revolution in heritage management, both nationally and internationally. If we enact this Bill, we will be able to help the national museums enhance its activities, identify, protect, conserve and transmit the cultural and natural heritage of Kenya. It will also promote cultural resources in the context of social and economic development. When this Bill is enacted into an Act, it will also extend the aspect of heritage to include monuments, antiques and ship wrecks in lakes and waters within Kenya, or the sea belt within territorial waters of Kenya. At the moment, we do not have legal instruments to enable us go beyond the normal earth's face into the water. We are now seeking the authority, so that we are able to protect whatever is our heritage which is under the waters, both in the seas and the lakes. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the Bill will also enhance the penalties for those who break the law. As it is now, one of the penalties stipulated in the two Acts I have mentioned, Caps. 215 and 216, is a fine not exceeding more than Kshs10,000. However, in this Bill, we intend to be 1260 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES June 8, 2006 more punitive and raise the fine to about Kshs1 million or 12 months imprisonment, or both. The Bill will also empower the Minister of State for National Heritage to be the only one who can allow people to open museums. Without the introduction of that law, right now, everybody can open their own museum. Those museums which have already been opened, yet the Minister has no power to control them, are used to take artefacts, which form part of our heritage, out of the country. We have discovered that we are losing quite a lot, and this Bill will enable us to control and make sure that nothing goes out of this country without the authority of the Minister. This Bill will also enable us to ensure that the natural features consisting of physical and biological formations; groups of such formations which are of outstanding and irreversible value, from the aesthetic and scientific point of view; and geological formations of special significance and features of beauty are preserved. We can only do that if this Bill is passed. It is precisely delineated areas which constitute a habitat of precious species of animals and plants of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science and conservation of natural beauty. The Bill will also enable us to protect the areas which have been of religious significance like the kayas . We shall also be able to protect open spaces. However, right now, we cannot do that. So, that is why we are asking this House to pass this Bill so that what we cherish as our heritage can be protected. The Bill will also enable us to protect the buildings we have because some individuals may, in future, declare certain buildings private and demolish them so as to build sky scrapers. The Bill will enable the Ministry to protect and ensure that any structures that are considered as monuments are preserved. We have heard many of our people complaining that colonialists took away very important artefacts which belonged to some of our famous leaders like Chief Kinyanjui, Mekatilili wa Menza, Koitalel arap Samoei and skins of the man-eater lions. There is nothing we can do now, apart from knowing that the former leaders existed. We know where the skins of the man-eaters are because they form part of our heritage. The events surrounding the leaders took place when the railway line from Mombasa to your place was being constructed."
}