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"id": 255631,
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Muturi",
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"legal_name": "Justin Bedan Njoka Muturi",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me this opportunity to say one or two things about the President's Speech. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, they say that the taste of the pudding is in the eating. In my view, the Presidents Speech contains a long wish list. If you recall, the President laid some blame on this House for not having passed sufficient number of Bills that were presented to us last year. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, among the Bills that the President referred to as having not been passed and are to be re-introduced are: the National Social Health Insurance Fund Bill (2004); the Wildlife (Conservation and Management) (Amendment) Bill (2004), and the Banking (Amendment) Bill (2004). Those are few Bills. This House deliberated on them and indeed passed them. It is the President himself who returned those Bills back to the House, and yet in his Speech he lays blame on the House as not having passed these Bills. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to start by differing with that position. He says: \"A Small and Medium-Scale Enterprises Bill, The Deposit Taking Micro-Finance Bill, The Savings and Credit Co-operative Societies Bill and the Political Parties Bill\". The reason I said that the taste of a pudding is in the eating is because, if indeed, high in the agenda of the President was the legislative agenda, we ought to be seeing by now those Bills which he referred to here. However, which Bills has his Government published this year? The Retirement Benefits (Amendment) Bill, The Kenya Maritime Authority Bill and the Tobacco Control Bill. The only Bill that he referred to is the Cotton (Amendment) Bill which has been published. So, the reason I began by saying that this is just a wish list is, if indeed it was intended by the President that those Bills he has talked about here which touch on the economy were going to be given the priority and the seriousness that the President seems to place on them in his Speech, 122 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES March 28, 2006 we would be seeing them in publication already before the House. These are the four Bills that have so far been published and we have not seen anything like that. It, therefore, means that these statements alluding to the fact that these Bills are going to be brought to this House are actually a mirage. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to contrast the Speech by the President with the very able and eloquent Speech by the Speaker, which preceded that of the President. The compulsive question that the Speaker asked about leadership was: \"Are we equal to the monumental task that faces this country?\" He further went on to say: \"If I answer it, I am afraid because speaking the truth has been criminalised in our times\". Criminalised by who? It cannot be by this side of the House. It must be by that side of the House. He spoke this in the presence of His Excellency the President. He said that: \"This House must now urgently get out of this morass. Which morass? That is rivalry, propaganda, hate, suspicion and inertia\". I want to say that regarding inertia, there has been a lot of it witnessed in this Government but because of what Mr. Speaker himself said in his Speech, and what the President said regarding the publication of the Political Parties Bill, one wonders, what is it that is proposed to be done in the Political Parties Bill? Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to suggest that if ever this Government is serious in introducing this Bill, it must begin by respecting the institutions of political parties. That Bill must have in its provisions a clause that says: \"A person shall not qualify to be nominated to run for elections on a political party ticket if they have not shown continued membership in that political party for a period amounting to at least six months\". That will help the situation whereby fellows run for nomination on a political party, they lose and then they jump ship to the other one and so on. That is why this House is comprised of so many funny people of so many shades. We will now not then be looking for househelps; people to help the Government in the House. I am told they are called househelps. You see, like the KANU hon. Members who were taken to the Government side to just go and help the Government here in this House. The Speaker himself pointed out in his concluding remarks that: \"I wish also to appeal to political parties in this House to exercise disciplinary control over their membership and to endeavour to strengthen democratic ideals in the transaction of business in this House and in the Committees. Unless this is done, parties and multi-partyism may to our collective peril, become things of the past.\" Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, to me, it was like the Speaker was actually addressing the President by telling him--- They are related because to some extent in the formation of the Political Parties Bill there is a connection. He is sounding a warning that we are killing multi-partysim and he says: \"You must strengthen democratic ideals in the transaction of business of this House and in the Committees\" Quite prophetically in the Committees, it is just last week that we saw the fiasco in the formation of the House Business Committee. Mr. Speaker was prophesying that unless we exercise democratic ideals we run the risk of ruining this country. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, Mr. Speaker did point out that: \"Indeed it is important that we exercise restraint and compulsion when debating in this House. Let us respect one another. We may not quite like the ideas coming from so many people but I think it is important in this House that we show leadership by being able to tolerate even those very good ideas that you may think are very obnoxious because it is the right of those hon. Members to say what they have to say and it is my right to express myself in a manner that I best understand\". It saddens me when I see an hon. Member going by this statement by the Speaker. A person that was elected into this House under the sponsorship of a political party that is not forming the Government standing on the other side here pretending to answer a Question on behalf of the Government. There must be some disconnect. We have killed multi-partysim through poaching. I was told that, that is a friendly term to use in the House. March 28, 2006 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 123"
}