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{
"id": 34184,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/34184/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Dr. Khalwale",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 170,
"legal_name": "Bonny Khalwale",
"slug": "bonny-khalwale"
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"content": "Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, this brings to mind the merit of us, as the Parliament of this country, to make sure that we address the method through which payments are made when they are being claimed by lawyers. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, there is a lot of merit in two cheques being drawn so that there is a clear cheque going to the lawyer and a clear cheque going directly to the client. Having said those things, allow me to point one or two things on some of the clauses. Clause 17 talks about assets held by courts or Government departments. Many hon. Members will know that we have many cash bonds that are paid at the police station. As soon as the poor Kenyan is released, he runs away going home. He does not want to appear near the police station. This money ends up disappearing. Similarly, cash bails which are also paid at law courts meet the same fate. With this kind of law, if properly worked on and improved, it will address this kind of problem. By the way, that money is not little. It is a lot of money. People pay cash bails of Kshs5,000, Kshs10,000, Kshs100,000 and some of them just run away. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, Clause 18 talks about the Minister prescribing further classes of assets. I want to agree with Eng. Gumbo that the person who was drafting this particular Bill is not living in Kenya. He must be living in history because he is still talking about Ministers when we expected such a brilliant lawyer to have remembered that we are operating under the new Constitution. I believe that under this particular clause, we can cover other groups not necessarily provided for. For example, in the villages and estates, we have very popular groups called merry-go-rounds. These merry-go-rounds are common amongst the low income workers, women groups, circumcision groups, especially in Bungoma. They are called age groups or rika . They are common amongst boda boda groups. When one member dies, the wife or husband does not know that the spouse was a member of a particular merry-go-round group and that money just disappears. It might look small, but this is an issue that touches the very heart of the common mwananchi for whom we want this new Constitution and the new laws to protect. I have a small issue with Clause 26. Clause 26 talks about the sale of unclaimed assets. To me, we must deliberately make an effort to ensure that we bring it in tandem with the various African cultures the way they provide in our communities. For example, in my community, in the case of land, if a man dies and his son had disappeared to Mombasa or to the United Arab Emirates, the uncle of the boy who has disappeared, that is the brother of the late man, automatically takes control of that land. He will keep on waiting until this boy comes back. If the boy does not come back or if he comes back dead, culture provides that automatically that land then becomes the property of the uncle. In my mind, land is an asset. If this land is then classified as an unclaimed asset and then the authority goes on and sells that property, it is obnoxious and going against our cultures. They are the same cultures that our Constitution attempts to preserve."
}