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{
    "id": 417603,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/417603/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 185,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Aden",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 15,
        "legal_name": "Aden Bare Duale",
        "slug": "aden-duale"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, hon. Speaker for giving me this opportunity to speak to this very important matter. First, I wish to really thank the Leader of the Majority Party, hon. A.B. Duale for bringing this very important issue to our attention and for discussion this afternoon. Much has been said about the powers given to Parliament and in particular the Senate with regard to the management of the issues of the counties. Article 96 of the Constitution has been quoted again and again. It is about the responsibility of the Senate, that it represents the counties and it serves to protect the interests of the county governments. Protecting county governments dictates that anything that is of harm to our county governments--- Devolution must succeed. Devolution must work. I believe this House is committed to that endeavor and Senate has done a noble job. This is in as far as acting on the information given to them by the Auditor-General and the Controller of Budget who represent independent commissions. They are endowed with the authority to be able to ensure that they produce reports that point to the utilization of public funds. The Senate is doing its job. Interference by the governors or disobedience by the governors to ignore the call of the Senate is against Article 125. The first part of that Article gives this House and the Senate the power to summon anyone. I want to turn the attention of hon. Members to Article 125(2) which actually states, “For the purposes of Clause (1), a House of Parliament and any of its committees has the same powers as that of a High Court---” How can one committee, which has been given the powers of a High Court by this Constitution, be ignored and then you run to a High Court to get an order to stop the summoning by that particular committee? That is in total violation of this Constitution. It should come out clearly that ignoring any House of Parliament is disregarding this Constitution. Doing that is violating this Constitution and that cannot be entertained. The manner in which governors are running around is a clear indication--- It is not the Senate that produced the evidence to say that these are the issues that need to be investigated, it is the Auditor-General and Controller of Budget. Senate is doing its role and it must be respected in that regard. If what the governors are doing right now, which is to disregard Parliament, is not brought under control there is going to be anarchy. There is going to be lack of rule of law. This is the supreme law of this country and disregarding this by running away from summons given by the Senate or appearing on national television and saying that you have no regard to the summons by the Senate when the Constitution is so The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}