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    "id": 391236,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/391236/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 59,
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    "content": "With regard to issues raised by Sen. Kembi-Gitura, I think he was expressing the difficulties, the inadequacy or the rate at which issues can be interrogated further which to me is legitimate. Sen. (Dr.) Machage should not purport to treat this as a justification of what he said the other day unless he is inviting the same punishment. However, the Chair is of the opinion that you cannot be punished twice for the same crime, in the same week. This depends on how you formulate and process issues. Yours was too serious that the entire Senate supported me on that basis. Let us not go that way. Sen. Kembi-Gitura put it differently and I think this is an issue we had addressed earlier this week. I was very clear on it. One, this is a new system, a Presidential system and in terms of Parliament, we have a Bicameral Parliament. We are investing in terms of committee systems. The Senator for Mandera has said, very well, that the constitutional arrangement is such that we cannot entertain Cabinet Secretaries in the House. They are strangers. What Sen. (Dr.) Khalwale has suggested is true. It is a precedent on certain things and it can be considered. For us to reach that level, we must be satisfied that the communication between our committees and the Executive have actually broken down. Secondly, we have actually made an assessment of the capacity of the Chair to interrogate these issues. Even the Ministers that we seem to be desirous of coming here do not generate that information on their own motion. They still get that information from other sources. So, the Chair can still be at liberty to get the information from the same sources. My view is that this is our baby; for now, let us try and see how it will survive until we reach a dead end. I think for now we have not. It is up to the Chairpersons of Committees, collectively, to explain the experiences they go through in the way they have been receiving feedback and information. It is only then that, collectively, as a House, we can reach the decision on whether or not to let Cabinet Secretaries address the Senate. I think for now we appreciate there are some Chairpersons who respond immediately, effectively and satisfy all of us. It also depends on the nature of issues. When it comes to issues of security, even when we used to have those Ministers on the Floor of the House, they were very difficult. Many times we had to dismiss some Ministers in order to bring others. So, let us give it time. I want to agree that there are concerns in the way we transact that kind of business. It might mean improving the communication between the Committee Chairpersons and the Executive. I do not think it necessarily means replacing one for the other. That is where we want to start first. You remember on Tuesday I said that if the Committee Chairpersons fail to bring the Statements, then the Senate Majority Leader should bring the Statements. That is provided for in our Standing Orders. So, let us try them out. We have organs of the House that will be able to interrogate these issues further. So, for now, let us stop there. We had also agreed that we were going to do the voting at the prime time of 3.00 p.m. This being a Thursday and since the Standing Orders allow me, I want us to dispose of the two Motions and then we go back to the responses from the Committee Chair. You remember yesterday we could not vote; we had to postpone most of the voting. So, we would like to dispose of those two other Motions since we have a peak in terms of The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}