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{
    "id": 300472,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/300472/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 607,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Otieno",
    "speaker_title": "The Minister of State for Public Service",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Madam Temporary Deputy Chair, my Ministerial portfolio is on human resource management and development. We are all created with different gifts right from birth. Our performance and contribution to society will depend on which of those gifts we develop. It is obvious to everybody that even if you are a runner, you can develop running skills and improve on them. At present, the problem is the Kenya Member of Parliament is a jack of all trades. So, it is so difficult to measure his performance. You have to develop so many other criteria. After we left here when Mr. Kimunya raised the matter of salaries, I had to go to the Salaries and Remuneration Commission and ask for the criteria they have developed which will give so much weight to education for a job that up to now is for a jack of all trades. They told me they had actually not developed such criteria up to then. Even if they did it, as of now, it would be challenged. Madam Temporary Deputy Chair, it remains a fact that as organs of governance in this country specialized more and more for higher productivity standards, educational background will be necessary in the performance of all sorts of jobs. The legislators are role models in our society. They perform a multiplicity of duties that require different talents and capabilities; even if the education criteria in terms of weight in determining their remuneration will come last, it will be obvious that in future, we will need such standards. I believe in values and principles, but also that values, principles and standards but they must be moderated by pragmatism. I was personally shocked - I supported this threshold - that it was too high when I discovered that 80 of our colleagues, some of whom I rate very highly as leaders, forgot to get those papers in time. If any lecturer were to evaluate them as of now they would not even need to sit in a classroom. They should just be given a degree after writing a few papers based on their own performance. So on the basis of pragmatism, I am happy the President brought this back to us. Please, be considerate. Is your timing right? It looks as if you are going ahead of your time. We must accept that the world is going towards the knowledge economy. The future legislation is going to be a lot more complicated. We need all types of professional qualifications, which put together would lead to the better leadership in the exercise of our oversight authority as a National Assembly. We need all types of professional qualifications which, put together, would lead to a better leadership in the exercise of our oversight authority as the National Assembly in accordance with the new Constitution. I support but we should be understood in the right context."
}