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{
    "id": 38470,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/38470/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 320,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Kimunya",
    "speaker_title": "The Minister for Transport",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 174,
        "legal_name": "Amos Muhinga Kimunya",
        "slug": "amos-kimunya"
    },
    "content": " Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we are talking the same thing. Once the people have delegated the authority to Parliament they have not lost it. They have given it to Parliament to exercise it on their behalf. They still have other powers that they will need to exercise directly like electing people, going to referenda and making other decisions. When Parliament has been given certain powers, it should not then be going back to the people and telling them, “you gave us powers to do this thing but we also want you to come and participate as we make decisions.” Once you have been delegated authority, you should exercise it to the satisfaction of the people who gave you that power. That is the point I am making. I want to take it from the very fact that I understand that the people of Kenya, including ourselves; the fact that we are Members of Parliament does not stop us from being citizens of this country. We exercise our authority inside and even outside Parliament. You have seen increasingly of late even those who have been elected are moving towards being part of the civil society. This is again going against the whole essence of serving the civil society. The civil society is meant to fill a gap that is left by the Government and the private sector and the media. We cannot mix the roles of different people. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the point I was making is that I am very happy that obviously we now have a criteria but let us not dilute it by inviting so many other people coming in without defining for them what their role is. How does the civil society participate in vetting? Their criteria is totally different from that of Members of Parliament. That is the point I am making. Much as we want the people to have the power to participate, let us not dilute this or any future Parliament by bringing people who have not been delegated that authority by the people to come and share in it. The other thing I want to mention is that let vetting not be another sugar-coated disguise for affirmative action. I am happy the criterion does not include that. You have heard affirmative action for marginalized communities and affirmative action against the majority of communities. I would like to see that when we do vetting, we do not create a situation where people who come from some of the larger communities will continuously feel marginalized through the procedures we have put in place because that could be potential disaster in the future. We cannot afford to say that the five big ethnic communities; the Luos, Luhyas, Kikuyu, Kalenjin and Kamba, have taken their space because each has one person appointed and hence they need not apply. What are those people going to do? People will start getting back into tribal politics because they will be saying: “The only way we can survive is starting our own Government based on our tribes to protect ourselves from the smaller tribes”. This is something we must avoid at all costs and make sure that Kenyans will be vetted without even reference to their tribes. This can be done by getting ten applicants and classifying them as we do in the commercial sector or in private practice do. You number the candidates as number one to ten and vet them. You vet all of them and pick number six. That is when you look at the details of number six and see who he or she is. If number six and eight have been selected and they come from the same region, so be it. What justification would you have for telling somebody that: “Yes, you are good but you come from this community so we deny you the job?” What future are we telling him is available for him in this country except to take up arms to start fighting for their rights from a different perspective? I think that is something we should be very careful about. I hope that within vetting we can improve on the criteria to say that people will not be based on their names but will be vetted based on some blind numbering initially. Only those who appear at the top will then be physically vetted. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, there should be a choice of adding more questions to the questionnaire, rather than being straight-jacketed by a criteria which everyone will cram and pass. That could become the minimum criteria, but there might be a few things that he said. Although somebody said sex is obvious, it may not be quite obvious. Just because somebody is wearing a trouser does not mean that he is a man. But in terms of stating it very clearly that this is the minimum criteria, that is something that could well be changed within the first sentence. I will support that amendment should it come on the Floor."
}