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{
    "id": 462422,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/462422/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 238,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Kaluma",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1565,
        "legal_name": "George Peter Opondo Kaluma",
        "slug": "george-peter-opondo-kaluma"
    },
    "content": "Thank you hon. Speaker, for the opportunity to address the issue. This is not unique to our Parliament. But any debate or Motion in any Parliament, anywhere in the world, will often take a partisan interest. People belong to parties whether in Presidential system or Parliamentary system. The hon. (Ms.) Rachael Shebesh raised the issue and I am happy it was followed quickly in sequence by hon. David Ochieng. I am balancing the two issues raised by the two hon. Members; there is a very critical balancing act to be undertaken. That is the danger I was struggling to raise last week when of course, I did not communicate my intentions. Hon. Speaker, we have reached a point as a House, where we want to be seen to be investigating everything under the sun, including rumours and even imagining who wants to protest against what and who could be funding them. We are sitting to investigate those issues. The danger is that, if we permit that situation, then essentially by dint of the provisions of what hon. Shebesh quoted, we are going to be gagged completely in our role as politicians. So, I would suggest that in as much as we are hon. Members and we want to be a National Assembly, let us agree that we do not have some competences on some issues. That would require that our timing in terms of how and when we intervene in the exercise of our oversight role, becomes very clear. Hon. Speaker, look at the situation at Westgate Mall tragedy. The President communicated to the nation and the entire nation agreed that the one single voice that was uniting the whole nation in grief of the situation was the President’s voice. The President indicated that he was going to form a commission of inquiry to deal with the matter; and we run in We are investigating the issue and at the same time calling State agencies. We have no power to gag the media from reporting what our children are saying. If we had waited for the commission of inquiry; remember under the Commission of Inquiries Act, they have power to stop publication by the media. So, let us agree in principle that the National Assembly does not go into those very specific issues, even in the exercise of our investigations. Hon. Speaker, any National Assembly anywhere, or any Parliament anywhere deals with general policy guidance and general policy investigations. May I request truly that we do not hear from the Floor of the House that the Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs was supporting anybody. We were entitled to intervene on a matter affecting the Judiciary. The House will confirm that once the matter went to court, the Committee retreated and we said we will wait for whatever the court is doing. I do not think it is an issue that we could not intervene. I am worried about wholesome stoppage. We are national leaders in this Parliament and we are also politicians. Unless an individual is 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."
}