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    "id": 258749,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/258749/?format=api",
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    "content": ". So, unless we were given evidence otherwise, we cannot set a dangerous precedence. I have said it before and I will repeat because I am usually a very consistent person, that if the Principals want to be serious and they want to reject number one and to go to number four, there must be a constitutional reason; otherwise, it amounts to discrimination. If we should pass this, I would encourage Mr. Omogeni to go to court and have this nullified on the basis of discrimination. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I would also want to indicate that there was no compelling gender reasons why we left the number one. Indeed, if the Principals were fairer, there was a person who was qualified and who was of a racial minority. If there was need for balancing, then we should have given a person of European background, whom we have not given any position in this country. If you are looking for any balancing, I am very careful and I have been very keen. I have worked on issues of equalization of opportunities almost all my life. We must be fair to everybody. I want to talk about the issue of the two women nominees. I want to talk about the issue that was addressed on the issue of passion. That also touches on the chair. I want to distinguish two things; those are women with very good papers academically. I am glad that the speaker who spoke before me has attested to the fact that, indeed, Prof. Onsongo even has a PhD. She has done a lot of work on gender and higher education. Irene Keino is also very qualified as an architect. She has degrees even in Lund University, Sweden on historical buildings. They are women who have papers. They have studied. There were no ethical issues around those two women and there were no issues of integrity. I want to be clear; the only issue that our Committee talked about those two women was the issue of lack of passion. There is much that has been spoken about passion and I want to un- package it. Mr. Speaker, Sir, it is not the passion of the night because I am sure we were not very ably qualified at that point to assess that level of passion even though I am sure some Members might have been happy to have been given that opportunity, but which we did not give them. What I want to say is that in un-packaging the issue of passion, there are certain benchmarks that the Committee looked at. We finished this Report in a short while and so, perhaps, we did not cover those benchmarks. We were trying to look at the issue of keeping time lines. I want to say that they did not have sufficient interest in the subject matter. When one of them was asked very specifically and directly that one of the issues that we have as a challenge in fighting corruption in this country is lack of political will; when we asked her to address herself to the issue of lack of political will, she said, “Do you know what, I have never thought about it. But now that you have asked me, perhaps, I will go back and think about it”. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I do not work on issues of governance and anti-corruption right now and even when I worked in the NGO sector, I worked on the peripheral even though I have done studies on them. However, everybody knows that at the heart of fighting"
}