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{
    "id": 40483,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/40483/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 685,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Midiwo",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 184,
        "legal_name": "Washington Jakoyo Midiwo",
        "slug": "jakoyo-midiwo"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir. I will be very brief. This Bill is very important. This Bill will cure the shenanigans and the dramas which we have witnessed in the last few months with regard to nominations to these independent high offices. First of all, I want to plead with the Minister that the names which are called for by nominating bodies or interviewing bodies, I want to agree with Mr. Kioni that the hands of the President should not be tied because we are talking about the future. What has happened in some of these cases is that the President can only reject a candidate because no latitude has been given and in each case we use public funds. I want to ask you to put in this Bill that, to avoid mischief, the nominating bodies can make their hearings open. When they present the names to the President in future, they need not be ranked because that is when the President will have the latitude to comply with the articles of the Constitution. We need to put that in law because what has happened in the issue of DPP, you saw where somebody had almost 80 marks and the other one had 60 marks. The President and Prime Minister had no way, but to nominate. I do not mean that the candidate was wrong, but open hearings had to be done. We now have experience. All that we have been treated to could have been cured if the Atwoli committee was properly tasked and it had rules to go by. I think we ought to learn from our mistakes. Lastly is this issue of investigations. I want to say that what has happened this evening in this House - and that is what I have been saying for the last three or four days albeit I have been misquoted by some sections of the media and my colleagues chose to chastise me. I want to agree with the sentiments of Ms. Karua that if there is an allegation, the only logical thing to do is to investigate. I want to tell my colleagues who think they were helping Tobiko, they have actually hurt his course. This country being run and the civil society being so awake, you have not seen the end of this because aspersions have been cast over that nomination. I thought a clever Government could have stage-managed these investigations under the circumstances. But you chose to go this way and I want to tell my colleagues that I do not think what has transpired today, we have seen the end of it. You have opened a pandora’s box and have ended up condemning a very able Kenyan into ridicule in the public podium. What is going to happen is that we will not get a good beginning. So, I plead with you, Mr. Minister and my good friend, to please, take your time as we do this, so that we cure this thing once and for all, so that once people go through interviews, they do not come before Parliament as Luos, Kikuyus or Kambas, but come as good citizens of this country who wish to serve this country."
}