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"id": 297995,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/297995/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Prof. Anyang’-Nyong’o",
"speaker_title": "The Minister for Medical Services",
"speaker": {
"id": 193,
"legal_name": "Peter Anyang' Nyong'o",
"slug": "peter-nyongo"
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"content": "One thing that the Minister said, which is extremely important, and which should be underlined in the establishment of any Commission, is the idea that this Commission will serve for a non-renewable term of six years. The only other country that I know which practises this principle of one term is Mexico. Mexico practices this principle with regard to the election of the Mexican President. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, the Mexican President is elected for one term of six years. He chooses his team. So, he has six years to pursue and implement his policies and, therefore, he does not need to curry favour with anybody, which would be inimical to the policies that he is pursuing. Therefore, being compromised for some reasons is not very easy. In order for us to have a PSC that is going to be respectable, nationally conscious, and one which will not be inhibited in exercising its powers as by Constitution and law established; and, more importantly, a Commission that is going to be impartial; the six year principle is extremely important. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, having said so, there is another principle that we must follow if, indeed, that mandate is going to be exercised effectively. The second principle, which is extremely important, is the qualifications for appointment as Chairperson and Secretary to the Commission as well as members of the Commission. This Bill works out a very careful criterion for composing the Commission, and for appointment as Chairman and Secretary to the Commission. The criteria are very impressive. The PSC should, again, serve as a model in establishing other statutory bodies in our nation. The terms are clear. They are detailed. It will definitely attract people with experience, proper professional qualifications and integrity. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, let me come to the issue of integrity. This is what I would like to request the Minister to look at rather carefully. Although the issue of integrity will partly be handled, given the fact that all the persons proposed for appointment as members of the Commission, and Secretary to the Commission, will be vetted by the National Assembly, I am wondering, having not seen it addressed explicitly in the Bill, whether we could indicate how the issue of integrity will be handled. This is an issue which might be overcome by the Public Officers Ethics Act and Chapter Six of the Constitution. So, maybe, it does not need to be repeated in the Bill. I think if, indeed, we take into account Cap.6 of the Constitution as well as the Public Officers Ethics Bill and the fact that the people will be vetted by Parliament, then we are safe on the issue of integrity, and maybe it does not need to be spelt out in black and white in the Bill. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, having said that, another issue that I think Parliament should have its attention drawn to is; the conditions under which certain officials of the Commission may be ruled out of office from the chairman and so on. I think again, here, we avoid the lacuna that we had in the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) where teachers could be stopped from teaching on certain grounds that are very subjective. But I think in Article 8 of the Bill, for example, referring to the disqualification of the Secretary, maybe these are much more clearly placed. The Secretary may only be removed from office by the Commission, in accordance with the terms and conditions of service, for – (a) inability to perform functions of the office arising out of physical or mental infirmity; (b) gross misconduct; (c) incompetence; (d) bankruptcy, violation of the Constitution; or (e) any other ground that would justify removal from office under the terms and conditions for service. Having said that, I hope that the Commission having been constituted by men of great professional qualifications and education and, of course, having passed through Parliament and having been conscious of the fact that they must operate above board given Cap.6 of the Constitution as well as the Public Officers Ethics Act, I only hope that we may not have certain intrigues that have occurred in the past, where certain statutory bodies have used such provisions and other extremely subjective approaches to dealing with such high officials. That quite often distabilizes institutions unecessarily and definitely calls upon such commissions to be mindful of the wider society on behalf of whom they exercise such responsibility. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, let me go to another issue which I think is equally important. That is the last Article before the Schedules; and that is to do with regulations. It is important that in such Bills we pay attention to such regulations because sometimes they are ignored while they are as important as the main provisions of the Bill. This is because regulations in any organisation are usually rules and regulations laid down for the conduct of members, civil servants or employees of an organisation. Therefore, regulations for establishing any such commissions are extremely important. I am just drawing the attention of the House because they may come towards the end of the Bill, but I think in terms of functioning of a commission or organisation, rules and regulations of how it operates are very important. This is because they lay the framework of the day to day conduct and they are the bedrock on which further regulatory procedures by the Commission itself will elaborate once it is established, will derive from. The Commission may make regulations for the better carrying out of its functions under the Constitution, this Act and any other national legislation, without prejudice to the generalities of sub-section 1. Such regulations may provide for the establishment or abolition of offices in the public service, the appointment including the power to confirm; appointment of persons, promotions and deployment of any office in respect of which the Commission is responsible under the section. I think it is important and I must applaud the drafters of the Bill to have included extremely detailed provisions for the manner in which the Commission will establish these regulations. This is because quite often what I have been seeing in the Government is that statutory bodies and such commissions, sometimes in terms of the day to day performance, find it difficult or do find certain problems if such regulations are haparzardly established or if they do not follow a format that would help in better functioning of such statutory bodies or commissions. It is good that such regulations find themselves in the mother law rather than just saying generally that the Commission will establish its own regulations for running itself without giving as many details as this particular Bill provides. No wonder this Bill was from the Ministry of State for Public Service because they deal with such issues on the day to day basis and they found it necessary that a commission going to look after their civil servants must also run on regulations that are sound and an example to other commissions and statutory bodies subsequently. I am quite sure that when we finally propose the Health Service Commission, we will borrow a leaf from the structure of this Bill and especially from these regulatory provisions that I think are very important. I think these regulations are also very important for bodies that exist at the moment as regulatory bodies in various sections of the Government. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, finally let me just say one last thing before I fully support this particular Bill which I commend to the House and I hope that we shall pass it expeditiously. Let me just say that on the issue of panels that are established to appoint people to the public service, we know for certain that our experience since Independence has been varied as far as the performance of the public service is concerned. The Public Service Commission (PSC) has gone through many regimes in this country. Generally, it has attracted men and women who have served before and who really know how the Civil Service works. However, there has been one major problem in the PSC which I hope will not be repeated especially with this new law. That is the insensitivity of the public service to the demands of renewal and change in the Civil Service. Appointments sometimes take too long, interviews quite often are not very transparent and promotions are slow. I hope that like the Minister said when he was presenting the Bill, that the Civil Service is very big and the PSC as well as the TSC will both handle extremely large numbers. The PSC will definitely be challenged as far as the speed with which they do their appointments and the fairness with which such speed observes the quality of the appointments and the manner in which they schedule promotion panels for the Civil Service so that we do not get through what we have been going through in the Government since 2003, of huge backlogs of promotions that really lower the morale in the Civil Service and definitely affect efficiency and performance. So, knowing that the size of the population which the Commission is dealing with is huge, I do not know how many panels are envisaged to deal with these issues. But obviously, the provision is here in the schedule that they are necessary. I only hope that the number of the panels established to deal with promotions, appointments and so on will be many enough to make speed up something of importance and to ensure that efficiency and morale in the public service is not hampered. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, I would like to support the Bill."
}