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"speaker_name": "Eng. Muriuki",
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"content": "system, which has become popular within Parliament Buildings. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Speaker and the administration of the National Assembly for facilitating kamukunjis on several occasions, and for organising a workshop which was held away from Parliament, where concentration was much better. We had the last briefing session at Safari Park Hotel. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would like to thank hon. Members for attending that session. During that session, we managed to get many comments on this Report. Therefore, I would like to keep my contribution short because we have already heard most of the sentiments. Nonetheless, because of the proposed amendments, allow me to give notice that I will be asking Mr. Speaker to set aside one morning Sitting for us, so that these amendments can be discussed. What I am moving now is the Motion for the adoption of the Report. The actual amendments will come in form of a Bill, which we hope will be given priority by the House Business Committee, so that it comes to the House within a week or two, for debate and adoption. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, one of the issues which we have had to deal with, as a Committee, was the long list of complaints by the members of the public and the Press. Our observation has been that the majority of the complaints are basically coming from politicians, political competitors and people who have interests in politics. The other people who have complained are those who have not bothered to read the Act. All the complaints which have ended up as court cases have been thrown out by the courts of law because they come from people who have not bothered to read the Act and file cases on flimsy grounds. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, however, in order to formalise the system of receiving those complaints and to avert a situation where every Tom, Dick and Harry ends up in court, we have recommended a system of arbitration, such that when one has a complaint against a given constituency development fund, he or she can go to an arbitration panel before he or she is allowed to go to a court of law. You will remember that the Constituencies Development Fund Act was challenged in the High Court. This is the second year that the case has been in court. We have spiritedly put our case forward. There is a three-Judge panel and the case has been going on. We 510 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES April 18, 2006 have had about seven or eight hearings. The next hearing take place in July. However, we have won in all the various cases. The complainants have put a number of requests to the High Court and we have won all of them. I think we are now fighting over the last battle and I hope the High Court will see the point that everybody else is seeing. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, over and above dealing with the CDF submissions as a Committee at the desk level, we have also taken the trouble to visit various constituencies around the country. In fact, we have visited one or two constituencies in each of the eight provinces, and everywhere we have gone, we have heard about success stories and, indeed, witnessed full acceptance of the CDF by the public. I am sure that even if the High Court was to decide otherwise, the public would not accept to do away with the CDF. One of the issues which we have come across around the country is the issue of affirmative action. Quite often, we use the term \"affirmative action\" in relation to gender issues, but in this case, our Committee observed that some parts of this country have simply been forgotten by the Government."
}